Book Review by Brian Sheehan
Reprinted from the Spring 1999 Southern AEOE Newsletter
My students and I just returned from Hi Hill Outdoor School. We had been preparing for months to experience the outdoor classroom. Returning with my classroom students now to the habitat where I used to teach as a naturalist was an honoring opportunity. Upon returning to the classroom, I read them a book I had discovered in Yosemite over Christmas Break. I had been anxious to read this treasure to them, yet felt this book would be best read after our week discovering nature in the mountains.
Wonderful Nature, Wonderful you is a unique piece of literature that blends three stories under one cover. Turn the pages to explore beautiful artwork of the natural world, and discover a story told in bold text about how everything in nature is has a purpose and is connected to everything else in the environment.
A second story unfolds in italics about how each and every person is a beautiful contribution to the world. The second story shares that it is okay to be happy, sad, angry, or afraid sometimes. Changes come and go and leave us challenged and altered in some way. Cycles of emotions are an integral part of our existence. This concept coincides with the first story because nature is cyclic: in nature, dying is a vital part of life. All creatures live for awhile, die, yet never really go away, only change form.
The third story, in small print on the opposite page from the first two, imparts facts about the animals that are illustrated on the pages. From decomposition to the playfulness of a sea otter, the reader is treated to amazing facts of the world around us. This is a great book. My students and I enjoyed reading it and we are creating our own book with the same three-story format. It is a great post-outdoor school activity.