Hope Ryden (1929–2017)

A bit disappointed in the book as this is not how science is done. The author got too close to her subjects and by her interactions altered the behavior of animals.If her goal was to connect to the emotional side of the reader she succeeded. Though scientist are not cold and heartless they must be observers only.
On the positive side she does delve into the challenges that the beavers face and what can be done to protect them. The feeling that beavers are a pest has changed in 30 years to one that they a integral part of the environment and their dams and waterworks are important part of keeping what littler wild spaces that we have in good order.… (más)

Amazing photographs of wildflowers and interesting facts about each plant are provided in this beautiful picture book. The author is also the photographer. While the flowers are arranged by bloom time in chronological order, I expected to have the flowers arranged month by month or by seasons with a divider page in between to make it easier to say look at all flowers found in March or those found in fall. Instead the table of contents simply lists the flowers in order that they are placed in the book with no list of bloom time. Since the flower names are not alphabetically or with scientific names in the table of contents it makes it difficult for the reader to navigate the book. Only in the author's description of each wildflower does the reader find out where the wildflowers are located. This book is more about the arrangement of the photos and text than about good information about wildflowers. The author did include the scientific names for each wildflower. Several wildflowers that the author included I would not classify as such. I would consider them crops that are all planted domestically and have escaped cultivation to be found occasionally on the road side so some people consider them wildflowers. Red clover for example is planted along roadsides and in medians as a means of beautification. I consider that a crop rather than a wildflower. Chicory and purple coneflower (echinachea) are two other wildflowers that I would also consider as crops and not wildflowers. Overall a beautiful picture book of wildflowers but not a good book for studying plants.… (más)