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A Field Guide to Nature Journaling: Hike And Draw Guide Books
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 5, 2026
What is it: in defense of the naturalist.
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Why 3 stars: this will seem like a tangent, but bear with me. In tabletop gaming, roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, Mothership, Wildsea, etc. all begin with books before they ever reach playing with others around a table. These books are partially rulebooks, explaining specific constraints that the players must follow if they're agreeing to playing a shared and balanced game together. But they are more than just rulebooks. They're sourcebooks, providing exposition of a fantasy world, introducing locations and artifacts and entities that constitute raw material for creative choices the players can make within that world. And they're reference texts, lists of spells, lists of monsters, tables of random events, a range of tools available to players to solve specific scenarios that may arise in play. And framing all that, they are themselves works of prose, whose tone and style are essential for communicating to players what tone and style of story is best suited to those rules and that raw material. This combination of facets come together to make a book whose single purpose is, altogether, to spur and empower players to participate in an activity beyond the book.
Sisti's field guide is, functionally, aiming at that same purpose. It intends to spur and empower people to an activity that involves their participation in an activity and context beyond the book itself. Which means that this field guide involves similar facets: not just instruction or constraints, but also exposition and context, tools and resources, tone and style. It's a lot to juggle.
Reading this guide, the juggling is apparent on the page. Some topics get a single page, some several; some start with a sentence of big-intentioned philosophy of science then transition directly into a particular example, some work through multiple principles without examples; some are focused on honing specific skills, some are encouraging broad engagement; and across them all the range of examples written and illustrated seem to aim for representing widely but in the process lose consistent throughlines. Which is to say only that it's a somewhat scattered reading experience.
The content within that scatter has a lot of good material in each of its topics. There's good philosophy, good principles, good examples, good recommendations, good resources. Sisti brings a lot of personal expertise to bear, and makes for a good teacher in that way. So, regardless the structure or style, I'd expect this guide to be a good starting point for anyone interested in bringing observational skills and data documentation to their experiences of nature.
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You might also like: Geographies of Solitude and Waterwalker (my reviews of the former and the latter).
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Why 3 stars: this will seem like a tangent, but bear with me. In tabletop gaming, roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, Mothership, Wildsea, etc. all begin with books before they ever reach playing with others around a table. These books are partially rulebooks, explaining specific constraints that the players must follow if they're agreeing to playing a shared and balanced game together. But they are more than just rulebooks. They're sourcebooks, providing exposition of a fantasy world, introducing locations and artifacts and entities that constitute raw material for creative choices the players can make within that world. And they're reference texts, lists of spells, lists of monsters, tables of random events, a range of tools available to players to solve specific scenarios that may arise in play. And framing all that, they are themselves works of prose, whose tone and style are essential for communicating to players what tone and style of story is best suited to those rules and that raw material. This combination of facets come together to make a book whose single purpose is, altogether, to spur and empower players to participate in an activity beyond the book.
Sisti's field guide is, functionally, aiming at that same purpose. It intends to spur and empower people to an activity that involves their participation in an activity and context beyond the book itself. Which means that this field guide involves similar facets: not just instruction or constraints, but also exposition and context, tools and resources, tone and style. It's a lot to juggle.
Reading this guide, the juggling is apparent on the page. Some topics get a single page, some several; some start with a sentence of big-intentioned philosophy of science then transition directly into a particular example, some work through multiple principles without examples; some are focused on honing specific skills, some are encouraging broad engagement; and across them all the range of examples written and illustrated seem to aim for representing widely but in the process lose consistent throughlines. Which is to say only that it's a somewhat scattered reading experience.
The content within that scatter has a lot of good material in each of its topics. There's good philosophy, good principles, good examples, good recommendations, good resources. Sisti brings a lot of personal expertise to bear, and makes for a good teacher in that way. So, regardless the structure or style, I'd expect this guide to be a good starting point for anyone interested in bringing observational skills and data documentation to their experiences of nature.
----
You might also like: Geographies of Solitude and Waterwalker (my reviews of the former and the latter).
June 9, 2024
Don't let the size of this book fool you! This little gem is packed full of great information to get you started and engaged in nature journaling. Great "How To's" and instruction will get you started on the fun and engaging activity of journaling. Nature Journaling connects you with our natural world. You don't have to be surrounded by the Great Outdoors to enjoy nature. An outside patio or balcony or greenspace in a city can also get you plugged into nature. This book will get you primed for the experience and help nurture your creativity.
March 26, 2024
This is a great resource to have when creating nature journals. I can't wait to continue mine with some.of the ideas given in this book.
April 30, 2025
Short and sweet. Covers a lot of ground in a few pages. It really wants me to be an artist of some kind, so it you can't do a quick sketch, this might not be your book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews