ONE DAY IN THE WOODS

As in One Day in the Prairie, . . .Alpine Tundra, and. . .Desert, George explores the ecology of an area through the observations of a patient child. Rebecca's objective is to see the ovenbird; Uncle Luke has described it as a wizard, but it's up to her to find it in the forest canopy or one of the other four layers of her eastern woodland park. After a 14-hour day, the ovenbird is found, and does indeed sing with beautifully described wizardry; meanwhile, Rebecca has seen dozens of other creatures—including a flying squirrel that walks into her hand and newly-hatched wood ducks jumping 40 feet from their nest to get to the pond below—and has put out a fire accidentally ignited by her magnifying glass. Young naturalists are rarely so persistent, and Rebecca's luck stretches credulity; but the device of describing her day wonderfully conveys the excitement possible in observations and the wonder of nature's interlocking links; and George neatly relates each detail to the larger ecological picture. Allen's black-and-white illustrations are delicate and precise; it's a tribute to George's evocative prose that the flasher artwork of other nature books is not missed.