For many years the Ramón family lived at the edge of El Yunque Forest in Puerto Rico. Drs. Emile and Iris Ramón were botanists studying plants in the rainforest. They had two children, Alberto and Nicole. It was apparently a lonely life for the children. They had no friends -- well, no human friends -- in the area. Of course, they came to know the forest community quite well. Each of them became attached -- excessively, it seems -- to a specific species of tree. The Ramón children squabbled nonstop over whose tree was best. Dr. Ramón and his wife stepped in many times to stop the heated bickering between the two youngsters.

The parents became upset. They asked the children to write down all they could learn about the trees in a journal. They hoped this would be a way to end the bickering. To build the children’s knowledge of botany, the parents checked the entries for accuracy.

Click on the diary to the right to read excerpts from the children’s journal entries.