Member Reviews
This was a lovely journal for people who enjoying drawing, journaling, or both!
I hate it when NetGalley thinks my reviews are too succinct.
I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I loved this book perfect for kids who are stuck at home this summer. Lots of great activities and prompts for them to do this summer. My nephew is getting a copy.
Thank you NetGalley and publishers for an . All opinions are my own.
This is a great interactive nature journal. I loved all the prompts in it. The best part about this journal is that it incorporates reading and writing and art all together. I appreciate this approach so much as an educator because cross-curricular learning is most impactful!
I highly recommend for those who love science and those who haven't yet discover the wonder in their backyard.
I loved this booklet/journal.. It was definitely something that both of my girls (ages 6 and 4) could participate in and also understand. The various activities, puzzles, etc were well-thought out! I would recommend this to anyone with kids (10 and under).
***I received a copy through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.***
Where was this book when I was growing up?! This is the perfect guide/journal to encourage young women to get outside and get engaged with nature. There's writing prompts, experiments, crafts, safety tips, sections to do art, etc. This journal gives young girls a chance to experience nature. The field of conservation is overwhelmingly male-dominated but in recent years, there has been an increase in women (especially young women) joining the field. I think with this book, that shows young women how to safely care for themselves in the wild and how to respect nature, we will continue to see an increase of women in conservation.
I know this journal is intended for young women, but I can see it being a good journal for reflection for a woman at any age.
I work in conservation, but I would like to say thank you to Ruby McConnell - you make me feel seen.
Right off the first page, I wish the book hadn’t been made specifically for girls. It makes no sense to me to literally put off a huge portion of readers from page one with the girl rules. Nothing really other than that is geared or targeted toward girls, so truly a misstep in my opinion because the pages and info and activity throughout the book are really great and have provided a lot of help particularly over the last few weeks stuck-at-home schooling 4 kids. Maybe next volume don’t do that....
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read a digital review copy of this book.
This book is exactly what it says it is: a journal and activity book. There are over one hundred pages organized by season with writing prompts, some hands-on projects, and paper activities like Mad Libs. The book is designed to be completed independently by girls and seems perfect for those who are already excited about nature and spending time exploring the outdoors. However, for kids who aren’t already excited, I fear this book falls short in the inspiration department. There is very little content that actually makes families fall in love with the outdoors. It’s assumed that you already love going outside and have a lot to write about.
What a wonderful idea! I wish I had something like this growing up. This is perfect for girls to go out and observe nature and journal their experiences. It gives examples on how log observations and even activities to do for each season.
A great way to organize and focus your enjoyment of the great outdoors. Harness the beauty you see around you for later kindling for all kids of creative endeavors.
This is an awesome journal for both kids and adults. I love that it explains how to keep different logs before starting the prompts for each season. This is the perfect family activity- visiting parks and going on hikes to learn about the nature that surrounds us. It's also perfect timing for release with school being out for a while, and indoor activities being too dangerous.
I like this activity book so much.
Let's go out and have some fun! Let's breath fresh air and explore nature!
I think this book is great not only for kids but also for adults who enjoy journaling and outdoors activities.
The only think i don't like is the "girls guide to the wild". Why focusing only on girls? I think this would be a great activity book also for boys.
Tha layout of the pages is really simple but relaxing.and the cover is really beautiful.
This is a nice nature journal for kids who like to write and draw. It is broken down by seasons and each season has pages like a checklist of a few seasonal things to do (example-- in fall it lists hunting, fishing, canoeing, foraging and a few others) and then lots of spaces for you to put your own ideas for the season, a scavenger hunt where you list what you found in each category instead of gathering it, a word search, a mad lib (strangely, these didn't have much to do with nature but were on the subject of things like Rapunzel), log pages for bugs, birds and animals spotted, 7 days worth of weather log pages per season, a few simple activities per season (think tree bark rubbings and panning for gold) and LOTS of prompts for writing and sketching, among others. It also teaches you in the front how to make a simple weather station with things like plastic bottles, rulers, a balloon, a thermometer, etc. The book is done in dark green and white. There are some simple illustrations.
Examples of writing assignments are to write about memories, to think up nature questions and then look up the answers, and to write a rhyming poem about an animal they've encountered. Examples of sketching assignments are to sketch something found in the wild and then next to that to sketch the landscape from its perspective, to draw something actual size, and to draw the same thing from various distances away. There are a lot of writing assignments and they often feel like essay assignments from school, just nature related. Kids who enjoy writing may love this, but others may balk. There are a lot of sketch assignments too, and kids who don't enjoy drawing may balk at this.
I do wish that the author didn't choose to make the book only for girls. I really think in today's time we need to stop with the incessant focus on gender. I can't imagine why it couldn't be "A Kid's Guide to the Wild." Nothing in the book is specifically about girls.
At times, the book seemed more like a workbook than a nature journal to me, especially with all the writing assignments. I tried to imagine if I would have welcomed them as a kid and I think I might have for some, but many just felt like homework. The same was true with the sketch assignments. A few struck me as creative prompts, but others were ones I wouldn't really want to do as a child or now. Of my five kids, I think one or two would have enjoyed the bulk of the book and happily completed most of it, and at least 3 would have balked at doing most of the pages. They would all like things like logging birds and bugs and a few of the other pages. I'm not sure, and with just a digital copy I can't hand it over to them and see how much they'd use it. I'm also not sure about having just 7 pages per season for logging weather and just a few field activity logs per season. Kids who really like doing these logs will probably want to do them daily or at least more often than the space in the book, though I know that would have made for a book that was too many pages.
All in all, it's a fun book that's especially well suited for kids who like to write and draw. I saw that the author posted on IG that it was good for parents who are suddenly homeschooling and I'd agree that it could be used in that way as long as kids are not already doing work from their schools as well. No kid needs additional homework right now. Kids who are home with new time on their hands and who welcome creative prompts are likely to have great fun with it, though. And in general, kids are likely to enjoy it as long as they enjoy these sorts of creative prompts.
Three stars for "liked it."
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.
My Nature Journal and Activity Book is an illustrated beginner's guide to nature journaling. Released 7th April 2020 by Sasquatch Books on their Little Bigfoot imprint, it's 208 pages and available in diary format (as a physical book, no ebook format as far as I can see).
For journalers who are intimidated by a blank page staring at them, this is a perfect start. The book has pages and pages of gentle writing prompts: where I explored, what I saw, what I took with me, how I felt, three words that describe my day. Interspersed between the writing exercises are really useful informational pages full of nature tutorials with lists of equipment and useful tools, weather essentials, and safety tips.
The illustrations are attractive and calming and the writing is clear and accessible. This would make a superlative gift for a young writer (really all ages, but mostly slanted to girls or young women in my opinion). Four and a half stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Absolutely charming and delightful! My Nature Journal and Activity Book is filled with writing prompts, craft ideas, lists for proper observation and so much more! It was truly a pleasure to look through, and I have already added it to my Amazon wish list! It is the perfect addition to any homeschooling/unschooling curriculum, or would make a wonderful gift for any young girl that have an observational love for nature.
I loved this and so did my daughter!
At 13, I worried that my daughter would be too old to enjoy this, but we both enjoyed it a great deal. It had a great blend of activities, information, crafts and mindfulness suggestions. I liked the simple but lovely illustrations, and it was very accessible, no matter your experience with being in nature.
We are avid campers, hikers and nature lovers, but there was still plenty to glean from this book. I think it would make a great addition to a gift basket for a birthday, with some cute pencils and a plant or two. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for spend some time in nature with the children in their life.
My Nature and Journal Activity Book has a lot of really unique activities kids can complete that have to do with nature. I like the simple layout of the book and how it teaches kids about nature, shows them how to journal or log the things they notice, and connects projects to their topics throughout the book. This is a book that would definitely keep my third grade student engaged.
Formatting is wonky and makes this difficult to review honestly. I think the gist of this is good, just unlikely to be suited for my library.
I received an e-arc of this book to review, thanks to the publisher and Netgalley--I'll come back to this review and add more details once I'm able to hold a copy in my hands!
That said, I can already attest that this will be an excellent resource, especially for those kids (and adults, perhaps) who want to get started on nature journaling but aren't sure how to fill that blank page. This includes excellent prompts, questions, forms, and games that will give even hesitant journalers plenty of ideas. I can't wait to get a hard copy for my girls!
Review to come tomorrow on blog/goodreads.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.
Things are opening up here a bit, but we still cannot go outside a lot (and besides I get totally panicky around people if I have to go outside because no one keeps to the 1.5 metre distance), but I still wanted to try out this book. Maybe if we are allowed to go camping in July/August I can buy this book and bring it with me. That would be fun!
Oh, but good news! There are A LOT of activities that one can do at home, thankfully since last year I got a garden so I can do a couple of these activities to keep track of weather and animals and the likes, and also do drawings and make poems, and more. That makes me very happy! I thought for this book you had to really go outside to the forest, nature parks, other nature stuff, but you can also do them at home or in your garden. Now I wish I could fill in the book, because that is the trouble with an ebook, you can't.
This book was tremendous lot of fun with tons of tips and tricks, how to make things, stories to fill in, you are allowed to draw various things (sometimes out of memory, other times while being outside, there are puzzles. The book is set in various seasons. Of course we start with Spring. :)
All the activities and DIY things are clearly explained.
What I would have liked to see was that the different seasons would have different colours. Green is perfect for spring, but yellow would be nice for summer, red for autumn, blue for winter. Now it was just all one green colour.
It is just a shame that this ARC is an ecopy... I couldn't really write down things or tape in things or draw. I am happy that I got this copy, but I think for some books it is better to only do physical copies so people can appreciate things a bit more. I still had fun, don't get me wrong, but it was just a shame that I could only read and do things in my mind.
I would highly recommend this fun book to everyone, I will definitely be adding it to my collection and fill it all up with each season.