Looking at Small Things: a guide for naturalists

by Peter Macinnis

As a child, my unscientific parents bought me a toy microscope, but they could offer no suggestions about things for me to look at. This book fills that very need for the next generation, gently offering ideas and inspiration.Here, the reader will learn how to meet nature on equal flatworms; mantises; leeches; spiders and their webs; springtails and sandhoppers; skulls and bones found in the bush; pollen grains; hairy leaves; plant roots; sand; rocks; rusty iron; decayong wood, lichens; mushrooms and snail shells. They will discover the detail that lies hidden in banknotes and coins; drops of water; soil; compost; crystals and more. Ant lions, earthworms; cockroaches and pillbugs may all, depending on taste, become their pets and friends.This is a guide for youngsters from 9 to 90, wanting to look at small things, whether they are animal, vegetable or mineral. It covers the range from zoom lens or naked eye to hand lens (magnifying glass), table and phone cameras, with or without a clip-on lens, USB cameras connected to computers and binocular and monocular microscopes, with or without a drop-in camera.This is a tool for all home-schoolers including modern instant and involuntary home-schoolers, but mainly, this is fun for humans, a saviour for adults looking for ways to engage young minds. It tells the reader where to find interesting stuff to look at, what to look for on it, and if it is an animal, how to keep it.This is no classroom-manual, science-by-numbers set of recipes, though, and it wasn't written to it was written for enjoyment. The examples are mainly Australian, but they generally have equivalents in other parts of the world, and as a teacher, parent and grandparent, I have always provided my young friends with ideas that can be taken away and used in some other way.I am a former biology teacher who is now approaching advanced middle age, and this book contains the distilled wisdom acquired from letting kids loose with microscopes since 1970, so I could learn from and with them. Every activity that is listed here works, and the many photographs bear witness to this, my legacy to those who come after.The book's dedication tells you where I "This book was written•to engage the curiosity of solo 7-year-olds such as I once was;•to answer the questions of curious 17-year-olds such as I once was;•to provide the answers that elude hard-pressed 27-year-old teachers such as I once was;•to offer ideas wanted by happy and engaged 37-year-old parents such as I once was;•to provoke the imagination of 47-year-old museum educators such as I once was;•to draw outside 57-year-old compulsive writers such as I once was and still am;•to inspire 67-year-old grandfathers such as I once was and still am; and to enliven the life of 77-year-olds such as I am now."

211 pages, Paperback

Published October 28, 2020

About the author

During 2021, Macinnis has republished revised versions of all of his out-of-print books. The website listed above tells you how to get them. In 2024, he published The Lesser of Two Eagles, where you can learn that in an auction, you get something for nodding

Happy grandfather, travels, writes for adults and youngsters, mainly history or science. Published by the National Library of Australia (Australian Backyard Naturalist May 2012, another book Curious Minds October, 2012, Big Book of Australian History, 2013, 2015, 2017). Talks on ABC (RN), translated into 7 other languages. Winner of the W.A. Premier's Prize for Children's Literature 2013 and other awards.

Writing blog Old Writer on the Block. Google it and say g'day!

McManly on most social media. His Kokoda Track: 101 Days was a 2008 Eve Pownall Honour Book in the CBCA 'Book of the Year' awards. His Australian Backyard Explorer was the 2010 Eve Pownall Book of the Year (listed in 2011, in the prestigious international White Ravens list of children's literature). In 2012, his Australian Backyard Naturalist won a Whitley award, and the WA Premier's Children's Literature Award in 2013. After a few busy years doing other stuff, his Australian Backyard Earth Scientist won the long-winded Educational Publishing Awards Australia prize for best "Student Resource – Arts/Science/Humanities/Social Sciences/Technologies/Health and Physical Education/Languages ".

He has had half a dozen titles rated as "Notable Books" by the Children's Book Council of Australia: that's equivalent to short listing.

Reviews

[Peter Macinnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the author speaking. This is about how to use microscopes, hand lenses and phone/tablet clip-ons to examine nature, the result of 75 years (yes, 75!) of bothering all sorts of stuff. A graduate in botany and zoology (double major) with a minor in geology, this is the book I wished I has as a 10-year-old. It us a book that grandparents need if they have bright grandkids. It had its origins in a start-up that was making clip-ons asking me to come up with some activities. I agreed to do that as a pro bono, reserving the right to use all of the material and ideas. The start-up later fell by the wayside, but tbe ideas live on.