Field Guides & Nature Handbooks

The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable." —Richard Louv

A boy is running through the woods, his bare feet kicking up dust on the beaten dirt path. In the concrete city the heat is oppressive, but here it is cool and quiet as he slides to a stop in the shade of a tall pine tree. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a field guide. Glancing at the bird's nest above, he thumbs through the pages. Is that a finch nest? He makes a mental note to return tomorrow and check its progress.

Just one of the benefits of a field guide over a phone is that it doesn't run out of battery, doesn't need wifi, and is much less distracting. If you want your child to be out in nature, exploring and enjoying all that it has to offer, get them a field guide as a starting point for getting to know the world that God made.

Besides a handful of miscellaneous field guides, we intentionally carry three specific publishers. The Audubon Field Guides come from the well-respected National Audubon Society. These typically have a a full color photograph section in the front and the text-only field guide section in the back. This series is limited to about 20 titles, and are helpful to a broad audience, so we carry most of them. The Peterson field guides, famous for their patternistic identification system, typically have illustrations interspersed inside the book. There are a LOT of Peterson Guides, and they are often very specific, so while we only carry the First Guides (geared toward 1st-4th grade naturalists) and a few of their coloring books, we are more than happy to order full-fledged guides as well. For our local customers, the Timber Press field guides are amazing, featuring insects, animals, flowers, trees and mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.

Review by Lauren Shearer
Lauren Shearer writes words for fun and profit. She also makes films, but everyone knows you can't make a profit doing that. Her other hobby is consistently volunteering way too much of her time. You can read more of her reviews here.
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7 Items found Print
Active Filters: 7th grade (Ages 12-13), Trade Paperback, Used Books & Materials
All the Water Birds - Pacific Coast
by Jack Griggs
1st edition
for 7th-12th grade
in Field Guides & Nature Handbooks (Location: NAT-FG07)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Another Field Guide to Little Known and Seldom-Seen Birds of North America
by Ben, Cathryn, and John Sill
from Peachtree Publishers, Ltd.
in Field Guides & Nature Handbooks (Location: NAT-FG07)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Golden Guide: Skyguide
Golden Guides
by Mark Chartrand
from Golden Books
for 2nd-7th grade
in Astronomy (Space) (Location: SCI-AST)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
National Audubon Society First Field Guide: Fishes
by C. Lavett Smith
from Scholastic Inc.
for 4th-8th grade
in Field Guides & Nature Handbooks (Location: NAT-FG07)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Peterson First Guide to Rocks and Minerals
by Frederick H. Pough
from Houghton Mifflin
for 5th-8th grade
in Field Guides & Nature Handbooks (Location: NAT-FG07)
$7.95 $5.00 (1 in stock)
Trees and Shrubs of the Pacific Northwest
Timber Press Field Guides
by Ellen Kuhlmann, Mark Turner
from Timber Press, Inc.
for 4th-Adult
in Field Guides & Nature Handbooks (Location: NAT-FG07)
$29.95 $18.00 (1 in stock)
Western Birds
Peterson Field Guides
by Roger Tory Peterson
3rd from Houghton Mifflin
for 7th-Adult
in Field Guides: Birds (Location: NAT-FG01)
$6.00 (1 in stock)