Exploring Nature with Your Child

From the dust jacket:

Here is a unique and fascinating guide to Nature for parents and children. If you have a child aged four to fourteen and want to help him–or yourself–to understand and enjoy the countless wonders of Nature all about you, this exciting book will show you the way quickly, easily, and delightfully. Over 100 true-to-life illustrations by outstanding artists and photographers make Nature's story doubly clear and dramatic throughout.

It doesn't matter what part of Nature appeals to you most–this book takes you out exploring them all, in the park, in the country, at the zoo or museum, or simply by looking at the weather or the skies. It tells you in advance the questions a child will ask and shows you how to answer them so they make sense. It gives you ideas for trips and excursions, rewarding nature hobbies you can share with your child, and nature stories that children love to hear, and in many other ways furnishes inspiration and incentive for you to form closer bonds with your child through Nature, and enrich both your lives.

This book tells you and your child what you should know about animals, tame and wild. From the house cat to the camel, the lamb to the lion, the canary to the eagle, the animals that interest a child are described here–how they behave, what they eat, and their fascinating oddities. You are introduced to the pleasurable hobby of bird watching and told how to recognize birds by their appearance and songs, and how to attract them to your home. You are given interesting information galore to answer such inevitable questions as "How do birds fly?", "Can a squirrel ever find the nuts it buries?", "Can animals talk?", "What is the difference between a rabbit and a hare?", and many, many more.

Snakes get their due here. In these pages your child and you will discover how a snake really gets about, how a rattlesnake rattles, and the true facts behind snake charming, as well as other colorful snake lore. Turtles, frogs, salamanders, chameleons, alligators, and crocodiles sea-dwellers and shore-dwellers, from the clam and lobster to the flying fish, the shark and the whale these and their curious ways are all explained vividly and entertainingly.

With this book to guide you, you can spend endless hours observing the marvels of the insect world and really understand them, perhaps for the first time. The lives of the bees, the grasshoppers, the crickets, the ants, the butterflies–these are only a few of the things the author tells you about, including why the spider is not an insect and how it weaves its web.

If you love plants, flowers, and trees, you will appreciate the helpful words and pictures that show you how to recognize them and understand their changes from season to season. The author tells you how they live and feed, grow and multiply, and even how you can get your child off to a good start as a gardener indoors or out.

The wonder of the night sky is explained with great simplicity to help you explore the heavens as well as the earth. Moon and sun, stars and planets, constellations and comets–all grow more meaningful as you read about them here. You learn the scientific facts about the canals on Mars, why stars twinkle, why we have day and night, changing seasons, and eclipses. You and your child are told what you should know about weather conditions and how to predict them; why it rains, snows, sleets, or hails; and why we have thunder, lightning, and rainbows, etc.

As an illustrated out-of-doors nature guide–as a reading or reference book on animals, insects, plants, trees, astronomy, and weather–as an activity and hobby book–Exploring Nature with Your Child is incomparable. It is packed with advice on scores of delightful things you and your child can do, including how to keep a successful aquarium, how to make leaf collections and leaf prints. how to start children fishing, and how to collect butterflies and preserve them.