SMALL CREATURES IN MY GARDEN

by Christopher Reynolds ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 1966

Glenn Rounds' Rain in the Woods (1964) is our continuing favorite for the acquisition of backyard natural history information and this book is in that vein. No accompanying information arrived with the folded sheets, but our guess is that the author is English -- from his choice of words, from the insect livestock that shows up around his house, and from the style, a dead ringer for the articles on nature that are a feature in the London Illustrated News. The people who write those articles are the essence of the expert amateur. They potter with total dedication and experiment and speculate with charm. Mr. Reynolds does too, conveying a sense of all the time in the world and the delight in information for its own sake, a sort of ""Isn't it wonderful,"" air. There are short chapters on slugs and bugs and earthworms, etc. that have appeared in Mr. Reynolds' garden which he has carefully observed and encouraged with food so that he could draw them. His drawings are superbly exact and he offers casual hints on how-to-do-it. He makes the point that random observations of insect life reveal only a very small part of their total development and that scientists need longer, more careful studies of even the commonest.

Pub Date: March 15, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION