This is how Molonglo Catchment Waterwatch Coordinator and children's author, Dr Stephen Skinner, begins his new book, The Patience of the Water Scorpion.

The idea for the book sprang from collecting water samples from the Queanbeyan River during the 2008 Regatta.

``The maddest thing about the inspiration was that two years ago, when we had the first of the Queanbeyan Regattas, we collected some samples and in one of the samples we had a water scorpion,'' Dr Skinner said.

``This poor water scorpion was prodded and poked and walked across people's hands and put back into the water, but it was still quite happy at the end.

``I thought well that is a fairly resilient animal so I researched some things about it.''

After discovering it was a stealth predator he decided to write a children's book. The book demanded around 18 months of meditation before he sat down and spent a few weeks writing it.

He said it would now be used to complement the Catchment Group's learning programs in primary schools.

``With the junior primary particularly, you often need to engage the kids with more than just the animals,'' he said. ``If you sit them down and read them a story they will go back to the stuff and look at it with bigger and broader eyes.

``That is what essentially writing these kids books is about.'' The Patience of the Water Scorpion will be distributed to all the primary schools in the ACT and Queanbeyan.