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Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars: Fun Projects, Skills, and Adventures for Outdoor Kids
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A hands-on, gloves-off, muddy-boots activity book for young adventurers ages eight and up, offering fun projects and adventures to build lifelong skills and knowledge about the natural world—from the host of MeatEater and author of The MeatEater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival
Does climbing a tree, building a bug hotel, spearing a bullfrog, stalking wild animals, and scouting for petrified wood sound more fun than homework or chores? If so, this guide is your perfect companion to endless summer days and rainy fall afternoons alike. Filled with advice, insights, and activities to inspire wonder and excitement about the natural world, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars is a curious kid’s treasure trove, filled to the brim with outdoor projects, skills, and adventures complete with illustrations. The book presents a ton of fun and exciting ways to explore the natural world, like
• building an outdoor exploration kit
• identifying constellations and navigating using the sun and stars
• collecting fossils and other geological wonders
• tracking animals and following weather patterns
• making your own compass
• growing your own fruits and vegetables
• building survival shelters and primitive hunting weapons
• fishing, hunting, and foraging for wild foods
• making cool art projects using natural materials
A must-have guide for budding naturalists, scientists, gardeners, anglers, foragers, and hunters, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars helps get kids out into nature,imparting lifelong knowledge and skills along the way.
Does climbing a tree, building a bug hotel, spearing a bullfrog, stalking wild animals, and scouting for petrified wood sound more fun than homework or chores? If so, this guide is your perfect companion to endless summer days and rainy fall afternoons alike. Filled with advice, insights, and activities to inspire wonder and excitement about the natural world, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars is a curious kid’s treasure trove, filled to the brim with outdoor projects, skills, and adventures complete with illustrations. The book presents a ton of fun and exciting ways to explore the natural world, like
• building an outdoor exploration kit
• identifying constellations and navigating using the sun and stars
• collecting fossils and other geological wonders
• tracking animals and following weather patterns
• making your own compass
• growing your own fruits and vegetables
• building survival shelters and primitive hunting weapons
• fishing, hunting, and foraging for wild foods
• making cool art projects using natural materials
A must-have guide for budding naturalists, scientists, gardeners, anglers, foragers, and hunters, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars helps get kids out into nature,imparting lifelong knowledge and skills along the way.
368 pages, Paperback
Published May 27, 2025
About the author
Steven Rinella
47 books1,021 followersSteven Rinella is the host of the Netflix Original series MeatEater and The MeatEater Podcast. He's also the author of six books dealing with wildlife, hunting, fishing and wild game cooking, including the bestselling MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook: Recipes and Techniques for Every Hunter and Angler.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 18, 2025
Copy provided by the publisher
Since my own children were allowed to play in a nearby creak, and would often come home with mud and mulberry body art, I knew I had to take a look at this adventure guide. Many of my students don't get a chance to be outdoors, even to walk home a mile from school!
The fact that being outside and having adventures comes with risks is acknowledged in the beginning of the book, and it even mentions the idea of "situational awareness". Parents are encouraged to know their children and what they are capable of, and to do activities with them if the children lack the skill level or maturity to do them on their own.
There are four main chapters; Navigation and Exploration, Collecting and Foraging, Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife, and Garden and Home. It's important to know how to get around ones environment, and the first chapter covers everything from compasses, following trails, planning hikes, and paddling canoes, but also includes how to set up a tent and fix a bicycle chain.
The second chapter has a lot of good information about discovering the outside world. This could also help with outdoor survival, since there's a great how-to guide for obtaining drinkable water, as well as a few tips for wild edibles (with proper caveats, of course). This also discusses collecting rocks and fossiles, finding bugs and stocking an aquarium, and even how to prepare an animal skull to display. The author, whose other work includes The Meat eater Outdoor Cookbook, acknowledges that some parents might be squeamish about hunting, and dead animals in general. The suggestions for obtaining a skull include talking to hunters and trappers who might have one, or finding a "deadhead" in the wild.
My father and grandfather were avid fishermen, taking yearly trips to Canada. I never had any interest in the sport, but I DO know the trick to making one's catch look bigger than it is! (Hang the fish on a line and stand a few feet back, and pose like you're holding the line.) This chapter inspired some great conversation about the roles and skill sets of my grandson's grandparents, and I've decided to hand this book over to his paternal grandfather, who camps and hunts. I'm mainly vegetarian, so I am not the grandparent to gig a frog or skin a squirrel, but Grandpa does hunt. I'll leave intricacies of firearms safety up to him; I stick with Eddie Eagle's firearm safety rules: "Stop! Don't Touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult."
As far as Garden and Home goes, I've also deputized the grandparent who recently made a rain gauge out of an abandoned and weathered plastic orange safety to be in charge of sprouting beans and planting a garden, although I will be glad to step in to make pickles, preserves, or cobbler. While I've always liked the idea of being an outdoor person, I'm really not. This is why I read a lot of books about getting children outdoors, like Spikol and Metallinou's Forest Magic for Kids: How to find Fairies, Make a Secret Fort, and Cook Up an Elfin Picnic. Gutierrez' Hiking 101: Tips and Advice for Little Campers, Ward's Lonely Planet Kids America's National Parks, and Storey Publishing's Backpack Explorer books.
This is a hefty book (350 pages) with lots of reading, so more suitable for independent reading for middle school students, although it certainly can be useful to younger children with more support. I would have organized it in a somewhat different way, perhaps with more chapters, but there is a helpful index that makes it easy to find topics.
My own children like to hike, camp, and garden, so I guess I didn't do too badly. I'll do my best to make sure that my grandson gets outside, and this will be a motivational text for me, since my skills tend more toward quilting, knitting, pie making, and knowing how to clean things INSIDE my house!
Since my own children were allowed to play in a nearby creak, and would often come home with mud and mulberry body art, I knew I had to take a look at this adventure guide. Many of my students don't get a chance to be outdoors, even to walk home a mile from school!
The fact that being outside and having adventures comes with risks is acknowledged in the beginning of the book, and it even mentions the idea of "situational awareness". Parents are encouraged to know their children and what they are capable of, and to do activities with them if the children lack the skill level or maturity to do them on their own.
There are four main chapters; Navigation and Exploration, Collecting and Foraging, Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife, and Garden and Home. It's important to know how to get around ones environment, and the first chapter covers everything from compasses, following trails, planning hikes, and paddling canoes, but also includes how to set up a tent and fix a bicycle chain.
The second chapter has a lot of good information about discovering the outside world. This could also help with outdoor survival, since there's a great how-to guide for obtaining drinkable water, as well as a few tips for wild edibles (with proper caveats, of course). This also discusses collecting rocks and fossiles, finding bugs and stocking an aquarium, and even how to prepare an animal skull to display. The author, whose other work includes The Meat eater Outdoor Cookbook, acknowledges that some parents might be squeamish about hunting, and dead animals in general. The suggestions for obtaining a skull include talking to hunters and trappers who might have one, or finding a "deadhead" in the wild.
My father and grandfather were avid fishermen, taking yearly trips to Canada. I never had any interest in the sport, but I DO know the trick to making one's catch look bigger than it is! (Hang the fish on a line and stand a few feet back, and pose like you're holding the line.) This chapter inspired some great conversation about the roles and skill sets of my grandson's grandparents, and I've decided to hand this book over to his paternal grandfather, who camps and hunts. I'm mainly vegetarian, so I am not the grandparent to gig a frog or skin a squirrel, but Grandpa does hunt. I'll leave intricacies of firearms safety up to him; I stick with Eddie Eagle's firearm safety rules: "Stop! Don't Touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult."
As far as Garden and Home goes, I've also deputized the grandparent who recently made a rain gauge out of an abandoned and weathered plastic orange safety to be in charge of sprouting beans and planting a garden, although I will be glad to step in to make pickles, preserves, or cobbler. While I've always liked the idea of being an outdoor person, I'm really not. This is why I read a lot of books about getting children outdoors, like Spikol and Metallinou's Forest Magic for Kids: How to find Fairies, Make a Secret Fort, and Cook Up an Elfin Picnic. Gutierrez' Hiking 101: Tips and Advice for Little Campers, Ward's Lonely Planet Kids America's National Parks, and Storey Publishing's Backpack Explorer books.
This is a hefty book (350 pages) with lots of reading, so more suitable for independent reading for middle school students, although it certainly can be useful to younger children with more support. I would have organized it in a somewhat different way, perhaps with more chapters, but there is a helpful index that makes it easy to find topics.
My own children like to hike, camp, and garden, so I guess I didn't do too badly. I'll do my best to make sure that my grandson gets outside, and this will be a motivational text for me, since my skills tend more toward quilting, knitting, pie making, and knowing how to clean things INSIDE my house!
Displaying 1 of 1 review