Cheetahs do prosper, sometimes.

John E. Becker, Ph.D., the award-winning author of 26 books for children, including most recently one focusing on a unique effort to help stave off extinction of the fastest land mammal, was a special guest last week at Marburn Academy, a private school in the Northland area for children with a variety of learning challenges.

Becker’s “Frenemies for Life” is the first book to be published under the auspices of his former employer, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. It “describes a very unusual approach to saving an animal from extinction – by using one of its natural enemies to help,” according to the website of Lerner Publishing Group.

“Cheetahs are a seriously endangered species,” the site says. “Their numbers have been dwindling for many reasons, including being hunted by farmers who feel the wild cats are a threat to their herds.

“The Cheetah Conservation Fund discovered that a special breed of dog, the Anatolian shepherd dog, has the right stuff to protect herds by chasing off the hungry cheetahs. With these dogs around, farmers no longer need to kill the cats.”

As an education tool, the Columbus Zoo has raised four “frenemies” together, two cheetah cubs and two Anatolian shepherd pups.

In addition to being featured in Becker’s book, the four — which the website calls “animal ambassadors,”’ have appeared on television and in classrooms nationwide.

Becker began his daylong visit to Marburn Academy at a general assembly for the students featuring one of the pairs of animals from the zoo, where the Cleveland native and graduate of Brunswick High School started working in 1978.

Becker also conducted writing workshops, in the morning with first- and second-graders and in the afternoon with students in the third and fourth grades.

Becker earned undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees from Ohio State University, according to his own website. He began his time with the younger group of students by discussing nonfiction writing. He particularly focused on what he called the easiest form of nonfiction writing, the personal experience narrative.

“It’s very simple,” Becker said. “It’s nothing more than writing about something that happened to you. That’s as easy as it gets.”

He then proceeded to recount a personal experience narrative that explains his deep and abiding affection for cheetahs, and his desire to help the endangered big cats.

During his time with the Columbus Zoo, Becker said he mostly worked in an office. That’s because, as it turned out, he’s allergic to most of the animals in the zoo. In fact, Becker confessed, he feared losing his voice just from being around the dog and cheetah at the morning assembly.

One day, there was a knock on his office door, and in came one of the cheetah keepers, asking for some help. That wasn’t unusual; one of Becker’s duties was to help animal keeps with their problems.

What was unusual was that the cheetah keeper was not alone. He was followed into the office by one of his charges, a live cheetah weighing 100 pounds. The spotted cat, which is built along the lines of a greyhound, sat down and stared at Becker.

“I got a little nervous,” he admitted to the children. “I got to thinking that cheetah could jump over the desk and eat me.”

To this day, Becker said he can’t remember what the keeper’s concerns were, but they were absorbing enough that the two men got involved in their conversation. Then, about the time he realized he no longer knew where the cheetah was, Becker got the eerie feeling of being stared at. The cheetah was no longer in front of his desk. It had padded quietly around and was sitting next to his chair, staring at him as before.

“I was thinking to myself, ‘What do you say to a cheetah in your office?’ ” Becker recalled.

What he said was, “Hi, big fellow, how are you?”

That apparently was the right thing because the big cat began purring loudly. Relieved the animal wasn’t growling, Becker sat back, at which point the cheetah jumped into his lap and began licking his face.

“That’s when I discovered that cheetahs have very, very rough tongues,” the author told the students. “That was about the coolest experience I thought I could never have in my life. From that day on, the cheetah has been about my favorite animal.”

After quizzing the youngsters on the details of his story to make sure they were paying full attention (“The better you listen, the better you will be writing nonfiction,” Becker advised them), he had the students write their own personal experience narratives about encounters with live animals.

Becker’s day with the students was only part of a “big understandings” approach Marburn Academy instructors take with the students each year, according to director of curriculum Leslie Buford. This year’s focus for first- and second-graders, Buford added, is on how communities function, starting with ones as small as individual families and enlarging from there. The connection between community and resources is also being emphasized, according to Buford.

Given how much children that age love and are fascinated by animals, the community-resource aspect is being approached by having them focus on animals, including field research conducted at the zoo, she said.

“They were scientists and they felt like scientists,” Buford said.

Becker, who has conducted field research on animals in the wild in Africa, shared some of those experiences with students, helping them learn not only how to take field notes but also how to create from them a narrative that makes sense to others, she added.

Back in the classroom, Becker had several students read aloud the personal experience narratives they had created.

“What a great job you’re all doing on those stories,” he said. “Give yourselves a big hand.”