nature books for children

Here are two superb books with two very different approaches to helping children learn about and appreciate the natural world.

One of them is a reprint of a book first published in 1923.  If you look very hard at the pictures and the pop up illustrations, this book may help you find a fairy, hiding in a tree, flower or among butterflies.

It tells you what a tree fairy looks like so you know what to look for.

It explains that fairy houses are not easy to see, so you must watch very carefully for hidden entrances.

Don't forget to keep a close eye on butterfies, because fairy wings resemble butterfly wings.

In a garden full of flowers it is likely that there are many fairies.

The other book has been meticulously researched by its Australian author. It has wonderfully detailed pictures and information about the animals, birds, spiders and insects that inhabit the teeming dramatic hidden world of leaf litter.

This book has flaps to lift that show you what is underground.

Under this flap we see a cicada nymph quietly sucking sap from a tree root. It's almost fully grown and ready to crawl out of the leaf litter.

Lots of animals are having babies now that spring has arrived.

A brown snake has just woken from hibernation. It's hungry, smells mice with its flickering tongue,  slides down the burrow, catches the father mouse and swallows it whole.

Now it's summer, and insects split their pupal cases and nymph skins and change into butterflies, moths, praying mantises and lots more kinds of insects. A southern brown tree frog climbs back into the tree for safety after it was knocked to the ground by a bird looking for insects.

There's so much to see and so much to learn in the Things to Find section. Some of these Things to Find are tiny and subtle. For example, on one page can you spot a half chewed leaf and the katydid that ate it? And a fascinating fact if you don't already know it or have forgotten: Like grasshoppers katydids hear with their front legs.

So there you have it. You want science based nature? You got it. You want fairies in the garden? You got it. But why choose? Anything that helps children appreciate nature is worth looking at.

Barker, Cicely Mary (2007) How to Find Flower Fairies. Frederick Warne.
Tonkin, Rachel (2006)  Leaf Litter. Angus and Robertson.