The Beginning Naturalist: Weekly Encounters With the Natural World

by Gale Lawrence

Fifty-two essays record the author's observations of plants and animals encountered on walks in different seasons of the year.

Genres: Nature

209 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1980

Reviews

[Andree Sanborn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for a beginning naturalist. I am going to use it in school because it covers the most familiar things: robins, slugs, bees, mosquitos and many other creatures and plants (even the Big Dipper). There is one essay for each week of the year and four sections for the four seasons. The essays are very short and interesting. Lawrence keeps things simple so that we are not overwhelmed with what we don't know. We don't have to learn scientific names and other esoteric things unless we want to continue our studies. This book is required in a University of Maine beginning naturalist program. Lawrence's next book, A Field Guide to the Familiar, promises to continue to expand our horizon.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent little essays. Some of the information I already had, but some of it was new and interesting. Her tone and humor made this pretty enjoyable through and through.

[Lady reading under the Willow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Periodically plucked from the shelf when the mood strikes for some nature writing, this book is conveniently divided into 52 brief sections meant to accompany the reader through the seasons of the year.

With a wide range of specimens from the natural world, each entry features interesting lore on individual plants, animals, or insects. If you want to learn more about something you've encountered but are short on time, this is a great resource (given that your topic is included, of course). The author writes from her experiences in Vermont, but most, if not all of the topics, would be useful for those in other regions of the U.S. as well. She kept the topics pretty common/widespread rather than localized.

We've used it in our homeschool, especially after having seen/studied/interacted with something that happened to also be discussed in the book, which gave us just the right amount of interesting things to think about without being a dry, lengthy fact dump.

It's been in my rotation of daily personal reads for several months, and the littlest child, aged three, asked for it to be read aloud every time I cracked it open. Now that's an endorsement!

Another of this author's books, "A Field Guide to the Familiar," is a lovely companion to this title. I think I enjoyed that one even more than this.

*Note: This was written from an evolutionary standpoint, and many of the entries reflect that. However, for those who view things from a creationist perspective, it is very easy to omit or alter the offending passages as needed when reading aloud.