Elizabeth Preston's THE CREATURES' GUIDE TO CARING In Store Event

Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's on Thursday, June 4 when author Elizabeth Preston comes to the store to share her new book The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care. Elizabeth will be joined by Ed Yong for the conversation and will sign copies of her book after the presentation.

to preorder a copy of The Creatures' Guide to Caring.

Poison frog fathers carry tadpoles on their backs. Killer whale grandmothers hunt to feed their adult sons. Tropical birds incubate their friends' eggs. Spider moms let their hatchlings eat them alive. Around the world, animals from the exotic to the familiar go to astonishing lengths to keep their young alive. Their biology, brains and behaviors show us what we have in common with other creatures, as well as what's unique about Homo sapiens.

With warmth, humor, and occasional run-ins with bodily fluids, science journalist Elizabeth Preston leads a highly accessible tour of cutting-edge research into how and why we and other animals care for young. She discovers that humans evolved to raise our kids in cooperative groups, and that the tools we've inherited for caretaking aren't only for moms or dads—they're the basis for our human society.

ELIZABETH PRESTON is a science journalist who contributes regularly to The New York Times and has written for Science, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Orion, Slate, Audubon, Discover, National Geographic and others. She is a winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award. Preston is also a humor writer whose work has appeared in outlets such as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Parents, and Real Simple and was the editor of Muse, a magazine about science and ideas for kids. She lives in Massachusetts.

ED YONG is the author of two prize-winning New York Times bestsellers, An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes. He won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award in 2021 for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2024. His work has appeared in many publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, National Geographic, Wired, and The New Yorker; he was also featured in three editions of the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology, which he then guest-edited in 2021. He regularly does talks and interviews, and his TED talk on mind-controlling parasites has been watched by over 1.9 million people. He lives in Oakland, California, with his wife Liz Neeley, founder of Liminal Creations, and his corgi, Typo. He is almost certainly looking at birds right now.

THIS EVENT is free but registration is requested. Registration ends at 6:00 pm on June 4.

BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.

DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.

WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.

WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.

PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.

OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.

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