Outside: A Guide to Discovering Nature by Maria Ana Peixe Dias, Ines Teixeira do Rosario, Bernardo P Carvalho and Lucy Greaves (translator)

Outside: A Guide to Discovering Nature by Maria Ana Peixe Dias, Ines Teixeira do Rosario, Bernardo P Carvalho and Lucy Greaves (translator)
Buy Outside: A Guide to Discovering Nature by Maria Ana Peixe Dias, Ines Teixeira do Rosario, Bernardo P Carvalho and Lucy Greaves (translator) at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Children's Non-Fiction
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: A well-written basic guide to all things nature. I would have preferred it to be more specific to a country (OK - I mean this country...) but the budding naturalist will get a lot out of it.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 368	Date: March 2016
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children's Books
ISBN: 978-1847807694
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I'm on a mission: I want children - adults too - to spend a lot more time outside. I want them to have the benefits of fresh air, increasing their levels of vitamin D and the knowledge of what nature can offer them. I'd like the television, computers, mobile phones, video games and even books to be laid aside and attention given to what is available for free, but which - if we don't care for it - might not always be there. Fortunately the authors of Outside: A Guide to discovering Nature have the same ideas.

The book is aimed at the preteen and for the most part the language is perfectly pitched (if occasionally more American than I would like) but there are a few words which are not in common usage and which were not adequately explained. Before I'd gone too many pages I'd noted down 'biotope', 'annelids' and 'polychaetes'. There is a glossary at the back of the book, but it's rather limited and none of these words are included. That's me being picky though - definitions are readily available online. It's not a book to take with you on expeditions - it's rather large for that - but there are suggestions about chapters you should check before you make trips to certain areas. 'Rules' are kept to a minimum: they really amount to sensible precautions without being too prescriptive. Just occasionally I'd have liked more - there's a suggestion about picking a bouquet of wildflowers but none of the restrictions which you'll find here.

I was expecting a basic introduction to botany, but I got so much more and it's not limited to any one country. By the time that I'd read through the book I had the basics of botany, biology, geology, oceanography, planetary science, the sky and weather. There's enough there to give a basic knowledge (and at many times the target age there was a lot which was new to me) and to encourage further study. The level of detail is suitable - I was fascinated by the information about worms, slugs and snails and pored over the map of an anthill for quite a while.

I was impressed by the way that examples are going to give the young naturalist confidence. In The Signs Animals Leave Behind there are lots of examples which you can easily spot - there's nothing worse than seeing something on paper which looks exciting which you then can't find in the wild. The same goes for Bugs and Critters and Amphibians: Is It A Frog Or A Toad?, but I read Reptiles: Always Close to the Ground with a sense of wonder - in almost seven decades I've never seen a reptile in the wild in the UK. Trees fell between two stools for me. Many of the examples given are native to the USA and there are not enough species native to the UK for young naturalists to get the buzz of excitement of spotting a particular species.

Probably the best part of the book for me was the section on birds. The piece on the anatomy of the bird is excellent, with one particular diagram which shows how birds can fly. It covers the aerodynamic wings, the musculature and even the fact that internal organs become smaller when there are long distances to be flown. Did you know that the bones have a lot of hollow spaces which makes them lighter?

In the centre of the book there are full-colour, double-page spreads of examples of butterflies, amphibians, trees, birds, snakes and lizards, flowers, animals and life you can find on the seashore. They're excellent and it's such a pity that they're limited by space and are not all native to one country.

The book is a good introduction to the natural sciences and should spark the imagination of any young explorer. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

We'd like to think of The Nature Explorer's Scrapbook by Caz Buckingham and Andrea Pinnington as a companion book. If you'd like to know more about penguins, have a look at Penguins and Other Sea Birds by Matt Sewell. If birdsong interests you then you'll find The Little Book of Woodland Bird Songs by Andrea Pinnington and Caz Buckingham is a real treat.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Outside: A Guide to Discovering Nature by Maria Ana Peixe Dias, Ines Teixeira do Rosario, Bernardo P Carvalho and Lucy Greaves (translator) at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Outside: A Guide to Discovering Nature by Maria Ana Peixe Dias, Ines Teixeira do Rosario, Bernardo P Carvalho and Lucy Greaves (translator) at Amazon.com.

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