Children’s Reads

These are some of the nature books my children and I have read together. They helped me make this list. Links are to reviews here at Discovering Nature as well as at my other blog, Across the Page.

Jeannine Atkins, Girls Who Looked Under Rocks: The Lives of Six Pioneering Naturalists

Barbara Bash, Ancient Ones

Wendell Berry, Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World

Thornton Burgess, Burgess Bird Book (and other books — sentimental, but with some good nature knowledge in a gentle package)

Robert Burleigh’s A Man Named Thoreau. In illustrated introduction to Thoreau’s experiment and ideas. Though it’s an attractive book and contains quite a few excerpts from Walden, it’s a little abstract for the target audience.

Robert Burleigh’s  Into the Woods: John James Audubon Lives His Dream

Lynne Cherry, various books — Flute’s Journey, The Dragon and the Unicorn

Jason Chin, Redwoods

Jacqueline Davies, The Boy Who Drew Birds

Laura Evert and others, Birds of Prey

Helen Garrett, Rufous Redtail

Jean Craighead George, My Side of the Mountain

Gail Gibbons, various books

Suzie Gilbert, Hawk Hill

Pamela Hickman, Birds of Prey Rescue

Irene Kelly, It’s a Butterfly’s Life and It’s a Hummingbird’s Life

Robert S. Lemmon, All About Birds

Gill Lewis, Wild Wings

Michael McCurdy, Walden Then and Now: An Alphabetical Tour of Henry Thoreau’s Pond. Woodcuts of various creatures and things Thoreau writes about in Walden, paired with text that explains their significance.

Nature’s Children series

Bill Peet, Farewell to Shady Glade

Wendy Pfeffer, It’s a Log’s Life

Beatrix Potter books

Robert Rood, Wetland

Lola M. Schaeffer, Arrowhawk

Steven Schnur, ed., Henry David’s House. Pairs some of Thoreau’s own words with beautiful paintings by Peter Fiore to chronicle a chapter from the life of the writer of Walden. It sticks to the specifics of the building of the cabin, and some of Thoreau’s philosophy gets conveyed in the process. It worked well as a read-aloud, and it captures the charm in the idea of stripping down to essentials and creating your own living space in nature.

Dr. Suess, The Lorax

Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Little House books. It’s hard to find a more attentive eye or a more full, intuitive response to nature both wild and worked.