A Bald Eagle and Her Friends

Beauty, the bald eagle featured on the cover of this magazine after she received a 3D-printed prosthetic beak (see “Engineering Beauty,” IDAHO magazine, May 2016), has since become the star of a children’s book that has won three awards.

Beauty and the Beak: How Science, Technology, and a 3D-Printed Beak Rescued a Bald Eagle, was cowritten by raptor biologist Janie Veltkamp, founding director of Birds of Prey Northwest in St. Maries. The book won the 2018 national AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for children’s science picture books, The Cook Prize from Bank Street College for the best STEM picture book, and a Eureka! Gold Award for Nonfiction from the California Reading Association.

Now that 3D printing is available in many Idaho schools and libraries, Janie has been traveling around the state through a partnership with the Idaho STEM Action Center to present live raptor programs and talk about Beauty to schoolchildren and public audiences. She also is busy giving readings from the book.