Hidden Prairie: Photographing Life in One Square Meter by Chris Helzer will please readers who enjoy looking at photographs while also learning about the process that went into the images. As an extra it is educational about the ecosystem of prairies.

Helzer is concerned about the gradual, and sometimes not so gradual, destruction of our prairies. This book serves as a way to help people understand just what is happening in those large open vistas as well as what is lost when they are destroyed. Yet he does not pound this point home constantly but primarily at the beginning and the end of the book. In between we watch and read about his experience monitoring the one square meter and all that happens there. It is both fascinating and beautiful to behold.

Helzer states explicitly in the beginning that he regrets not going out very much if at all for the first part of the year. He took as many pictures as he could that would highlight the life there and, as he again mentions in one of the essays, he had to balance keeping a couple of subjects (a tree frog and a mantis as I recall) within the square because he wanted to get them both. If you're interested in the cycle of life, generation and regeneration, that takes place in a small plot over the course of a year, this book will reward you many times over.

From information about various species of animals to the role every living creature, plant and animal, plays in the ecosystem, coupled with photography that will make you want to take up the hobby if you haven't already.

I highly recommend this book for both its photographs and Helzer's essays. It is not an oversize book but is more of a landscape than portrait format which lends itself to displaying the photographs very well. It would also look nice on a coffee or end table.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

I live in Kansas and so it is often with intrigue that I have found myself looking out across the rolling prairies of the state as we have driven past most of them. The beauty of the sky, the livestock that has replaced the much larger animals of the grasslands and just watching the wind caress the grass as if they were waves thus making their own mark. Never have I really given a thought about studying just one small patch each day and learning to get quite intimate with what I find there.

Chris Helzer opens the reader to such a project in which he devotes the majority of his time within a year to doing just so and this is the conclusion of that study. The reader is given a chance to explore with him through personal essays and photographs the challenges, the victories, the lessons and the need for all the species within that single bit of ground.

The photographs are just mind-blowing and capture life in that perfect second of instead of looking up and ahead of just being. There is the sun, the flowers, the minibeasts and even that special animal of the author's. The bottom of each of these includes a timestamp for readers who are interested in that information.

I would have loved to have seen more photographs than what were included and in the end a collage of bigger sized photos since the small jumbled one kind of blends in all the elements together. But for what was included I can definitely recommend the book to those exploring this world.

And finally the essays are interesting for their own merit as they are easily written and go into depth to answer questions the reader may or may not have. Towards the end they did get a bit on the repetitive side but it still balances the book out.

All in all a great little book that reminds readers to take the time to stop and smell the flowers while observing the life that is right in front of your nose if you just take the time to do so.

***I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review***

I grew up near prairies in Minnesota, so I was intrigued by this book's description. The author photographed activity in a one square meter plot of prairie for an entire year. The result is this collection of photographs that are quite stunning, particularly for those who are interested in insects or plants. This would be a great resource book for school libraries or for anyone who's interested. Photos are amazing!

I'm in love with this book. I read close to 400 books a year and I suspect this is going to be one of my favorites of 2020, if not my #1. What a beautiful, interesting, fun, important, lovely book! It reminds me a bit of Jim Brandenburg's Chased By the Light series, where he took only one photograph each day for a year. In this case, Helzer photographed wildlife in only one square meter of prairie, all year long. His photographs are a treasure, his information about the species he encountered is a treasure, and his charming essays are the greatest treasure of all. The bit on praying mantises was so endearing that I read it to my 20 year-old daughter, who at first rolled her eyes that I was making her listen and then proclaimed that he was the Mantis Lord and she'd follow him anywhere. Or something to that extent. ;)

We are losing our prairies, and they are vitally important to our birds, our pollinators, our environment and our future. It's all well and good to tell people that, but projects like this show how priceless every meter of prairie is, and make us root for these tiny little creatures who help run the world.

Highly, highly recommended.

I read a digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.