Nature Books for Young People

Looking for some book present ideas for young people? Perhaps they've been fans of the 'explore and discover' books and are now teens. Perhaps they've got New Zealand Nature Heroes and love to read about nature and be inspired by nature heroes. Here's my top tips for young people from my reading this year.

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

Dara McAnulty is a young nature hero. His book Diary of a Young Naturalist is a must read for nature lovers, whether teens or adults. 

This book stands out head and shoulders above other books by young people on their nature experiences or activism. Dara is a talented writer and writes with extraordinary perception and intensity about his relationship with the natural world around him.

I am buoyed by the life springing out everywhere, in the garden, in the school grounds, even on the streets around the house. My heart crashes less against my chest. I feel in rhythm with nature, and I start becoming immersed in every moment again, letting each wave hit me and seep in. (May11)

Stay at Home Nature Travel - Reading Recommendations

Right now people all around the world are hunkering down, travel plans cancelled, trips and events off. Those of us lucky enough to live among nature or close to wild places can still get out and about on solitary bird counts, or hikes where we distance ourselves from our companions. But some journeys or places we might have hoped to visit can now only be enjoyed from afar and preferably through a good book. Yes, you can watch nature documentaries or real-life adventure films but the are over in an evening and won't keep you engaged for as long as a good book can.

From my recent Nature reading list, here are some recommendations for nature journeys, each told from a unique personal perspective.  Experience the fungi in the woods of Norway, the migratory route of snow geese through North America, the wild Orkney Islands, a camel trek through central Australia and the Te Araroa Trail in New Zealand.

The Way Through the Woods: of mushrooms and mourning by Long Litt Woon 
(translated into English by Barbara J. Haveland 2019)

The author describes The Way Through The Woods as telling "two parallel journeys: an outer one, into the realm of mushrooms, and an inner one, through the landscape of mourning." Malaysian born Long Litt Woon has lived her adult life in Norway. While mourning the early death of her Norwegian husband, she found herself drawn into the European pastime of collecting edible fungi. 'Mushrooms and mourning' may sound like a strange combination, but this is no contrived book of an author seeking a vehicle for her story. It's an authentic journey; interweaving strands of discovery both personal and about the natural world.

The epiphany Long Litt Woon describes of seeing with new eyes, will ring true for anyone who has started to learn the ways of nature.  "A walk through the woods is a very different experience when undertaken armed with new knowledge, however limited it may be. Suddenly I was seeing mushrooms everywhere, fungi that I would have walked past before, blending as they did into the landscape. Now they were popping out at me in 3D, as if I'd been given special glasses to see them." The Way Through the Woods is full of such insights and new ways of experiencing the natural world - a whole chapter is given over to the odour of fungi, for example.

Native Trees and Plants of New Zealand Brought Vividly to Life

The act of identifying and naming plants changes the way we see the bush. No longer is it a tangle of different greens, a confusing mass of different shape leaves. Bark, flowers, berries, leaves, all provide clues about the trees in the canopy above or help us distinguish the different plants in the understorey.  Once we can tell them apart the bush, wetlands, coast all begin to look very different to our eyes.

But learning about native plants even for those regularly in the bush can be a slow process. Among my Forest and Bird tramping group, there are repeated discussions as we remind ourselves about the differences between mataī and miro; mānuka and kānuka; horopito and toropapa. (Perhaps we can be forgiven for struggling to tell the latter two apart, as page 30 of The Meaning of Trees tells me this is likely to be down to plant mimicry.) 

In the end, it is rich descriptions and stories that help us remember the differences and characteristics. Toetoe has drooping flowers, those of pampas are erect and spear-like. Rangiora is the bushman’s friend, its thick leaves were handy for toilet paper or writing notes on. The blood red colour below the flaking bark of mataī was seen in some traditions as representing the blood of Tunaroa, the eel god slain by Māui. 

The Meaning of Trees: the history and uses of New Zealand’s native plants by Robert Vennell is a treasure trove of such rich descriptions and stories of our native trees, shrubs and and other plants such as vines, flax, bracken and even bull kelp. The book rewards repeated reading, and dipping into, as each time something new stands out, a whakataukī, a legend, or maybe where it got its name.

Getting a Nature Fix: reading about nature

Reading about nature can't replace the experience of exploring and discovering in nature, but it certainly can enhance it, helping us to better understand what we are seeing or to look more closely at details. Earlier this year, for example, I reviewed two excellent books on New Zealand birds and reptiles that added substantially to the knowledge I've gained from volunteer field work.

My own books will, I hope, open children's eyes to what they see in their gardens, parks and at the beach, although on the whole I'd prefer that they spend more time in nature than poring over my books! When I started writing there were relatively few factual books for young children about nature, and despite New Zealand being a country in which most people have contact with nature, there are relatively few nature books for adults that go beyond glossy photos or field guides.

UK bookshop - just one of the many shelves devoted to Nature Writing

'Birdstories' Uncovering the Secrets of New Zealand Birds

Birdstories is my new go-to book! When I was pondering which shelf to put it on - next to the field guides or among the nature prose, it occurred to me that since this book won’t be staying on the shelf for long, it might as well stay on my table, given the number of times I’ll be referring back to it. 

Birdstories: a history of birds of New Zealand by Geoff Norman, published by Potton & Burton

Rich in information, Birdstories, takes one group of birds at a time - there’s a chapter on kiwi, one on eagles and falcons, another on cuckoos and so on.  Each chapter discusses the history of the bird(s) in question - both in terms of ancestry but also human interaction. You'll find answers here on how it got its scientific name, whether it appears in whaktaukī, in some cases what aided its extinction, in others how it's hanging on to survive.

Fantastic Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of New Zealand

Finally the field guide of reptiles and amphibians that we’ve all been waiting for! 

Reptiles and Amphibians of New Zealand: a field guide by Dylan van Winkle, Marleen Baling and Rod Hitchmough published by Auckland University Press

Followers of my blog will know that over the last five years I’ve been involved with several volunteer lizard projects. I’ve gone from only being able to tell the difference between a gecko and a skink to being able to identify particular skinks and geckos, such as a copper skink or a ngahere gecko. That hasn’t been an easy journey, but I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside some excellent herpetologists who’ve patiently explained the differences. My fellow volunteers and I have pored over some imperfect online guides and photos trying to spot the subtle differences between brown skinks and northern grass skinks, for example, subtle that is to a beginner's eye. So it was with huge excitement that I opened the field guide.

My Nature Journal - Best of 2018

Summer 2018

Tūī chick in my garden

One of the most memorable experiences last summer was getting up close to a tūī chick in the garden and watching the brood flourish. I wrote about it in my most popular blogposts: Tūī Takeover. Our tūī provide a source of both interest and entertainment all year round. And...

The Nature Bookshelf - what I'm reading

Location is a key element of most nature writing. Terrain and climate determine the plants and animals that live there. Place plays a role, too, in how people experience and interact with nature.

Some places are universal 'hot' topics - the polar regions, Galapagos Islands, Himalayan mountains. Others will only ever attract a smaller, domestic readership. Yet these works record a place, time, and depict nature in ways that other media cannot. These local books deserve a wide readership, but sadly I think in New Zealand this readership is diminishing. Fewer people seem to know what local books are available or where to buy them, turning to Amazon or Book Depository for their reading material, rather than local outlets such as publishers' websites or bookshops. Some books remain in print such a short time that I have to resort to borrowing from the library or haunting second-hand bookshops to search them out.

Here's a few local books I've been reading, both deserve to be better known.

Tales from Abel Tasman National Park

 The obscure title People Came Later doesn't do justice to this delightful book about the Abel Tasman National Park by Perrine Moncrieff. Years before the National Park was formed Perrine and her family built a bach in a bay across from Adele Island. The chapters range from amusing anecdotes about people and boats, through to more serious topics such as the arrival of stoats and the demise of the penguin population.

Perrine was a mover and shaker. She was instrumental in saving forest from being logged and birds from being indiscriminately shot. She campaigned for the formation of Abel Tasman National Park. Shortly after I'd finished reading it, I was lucky enough to be taken to Adele Island and could see for myself the places that she wrote about. It's very different now, the few seals on the island were far outnumbered by the kayakers and tour boats.

I had to source this book from the library as it is long out of

What I’m Reading - Summer 2018

Where Song Began: Australia's birds and how they changed the world by Tim Low

Who’d have thought a non-fiction book on birds would be a page-turner! Turns out this one is. Tim Low has a pacy style of writing, and he’s not shy about putting forward his opinions. It’s great to find serious non-fiction with a popular pull. The last book I read like this was The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohleben, a best-seller around the world but with a definite Northern Hemisphere focus. Putting Australian birds at the centre of the bird world might not be popular in the Northern Hemisphere, but for a fellow antipodean this was refreshing. I loved the scope of this book, starting with the intriguing business of sugar feeding birds, the book spanned bird evolution, ecology, and conservation issues. I was left gasping for breath at the end.  There are plenty of mentions of New Zealand birds and those interested in finding out more would find a good companion read in be recently revised Ghosts of Gondwana by George Gibbs.  There are a few photos in the book but those not familiar with Australian birds might be disappointed there aren’t more. Still it’s easy to look up birds in a field guide or App as you read along. I’ll definitely be packing this book on my next trip to Australia, it’ll be a perfect re-read while I’m listening to raucous cockatoos and honeyeaters.

The Fly Trap by Frederick Sjoberg

Lent to me by a friend, this pleasant read is proof even hover flies can be interesting. It seems insect collectors are contemplative people noticers and what better place than a Swedish island. His contemplations about local encounters of people and hover flies are interspersed with some literary reflections and a biography of sorts of Malaise, a Swedish entomologist. Malaise invented an insect trap, hence the title of the book. A delightful read for those who enjoy nature writing.

My blogpost about Ghosts of Gondwana https://explorediscovernature.blogspot.co.nz/2017/03/back-in-time-to-ancient-zealandia-from.html

Back in Time to Ancient Zealandia - From Moa to Dinosaurs

Keeping up to date with scientific discoveries about New Zealand's origins can be a bit hit and miss. Think about what you remember from school or nature documentaries you've seen. Like me, you might have had the idea that our weird and wonderful wildlife was all on board New Zealand when it split from Gondwana. The term "Moa's Ark" made popular by David Bellamy reinforces that idea, suggesting that the land was a boat on which animals sailed away.

Scientific advances however have enabled scientists to have a much more nuanced understanding of New Zealand's origins - and of the fauna and flora that we identify with New Zealand.

Takahe, moa and Haast's eagle 'From Moa to Dinosaurs'
illustration Ned Barraud

Here are some facts that I learned about while researching and writing From Moa to Dinosaurs: explore and discover ancient New Zealand:

Speaking for Science - Book Reviews

- not your usual summer reading, these worthwhile reads clear confusion around some controversial topics.

Shaun Hendy in his compelling Silencing Science (BWB texts) argues that “New Zealanders can’t be complacent. I believe that there are rifts between our scientists, our politicians and the public that put members of our society at risk.” His readable short text (128pp) takes examples from across New Zealand public life - from earthquakes, through folic acid in bread, to food safety scares - and looks at issues such as commercial interests that can silence scientists and the media’s role in communicating science whether it’s during a disaster or in public debate. Having read Silencing Science earlier this year, I was pleased to see two new science books for the general public on potentially controversial topics had hit the bookshops. And I was interested to see whether they might be bridging some of the rifts Shaun Hendy referred to in communicating science to the public.