Editing Great auk (section)

====Children's books====
[[Charles Kingsley]]'s ''[[The Water-Babies|The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby]]'' (1863) features the last great auk (referred to in the book as a ''gairfowl'') telling the tale of the demise of her species.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kingsley |first=Charles |url=https://archive.org/details/waterbabiesfairy00king_9/page/251/mode/1up?q=herrings&view=theater |title=The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby |date=1863 |publisher=London & Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. |pages=251, 257–265}}</ref> Different illustrations of the auk are included in the original 1863 version, the 1889 version illustrated by [[Edward Linley Sambourne|Linley Sambourne]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Water-Babies, by Charles Kingsley |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1018/1018-h/1018-h.htm |access-date=2024-11-08 |website=www.gutenberg.org}}</ref>{{page needed|date=January 2025}} 1916 by [[Frank A. Nankivell]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=The water-babies |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/16021937/ |access-date=2024-11-08 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 US}}</ref>{{page needed|date=January 2025}} and 1916 by [[Jessie Willcox Smith]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Jessie Willcox |date=1916 |title=And there he saw the last of the gairfowl |url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010718120/ |access-date=2024-11-08 |website=www.loc.gov |language=en}}</ref> Kinglsey's auk implicates the "nasty fellows" who "shot us so, and knocked us on the head, and took our eggs." While Kingsley portrays the extinction as sad, he provides his opinion that "there are better things come in her place," namely human colonization of the islands for the [[cod]] fishing industry, which would serve to feed the poor. He concludes the discussion with a quote from [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]]: "The old order changeth, giving place to the new; And God fulfils Himself in many ways."{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}

[[Enid Blyton]]'s ''[[The Island of Adventure]]'' (1944) sends one of the protagonists on a failed search for what he believes is a lost colony of the species.<ref>{{cite book |last=Blyton |first=Enid |title=The Island of Adventure |publisher=Macmillan |year=1944 |location=London}}</ref>{{page needed|date=January 2025}}