NATURE ANATOMY: THE CURIOUS PARTS & PIECES OF THE NATURAL WORLD

This book contains seven chapters, each creatively labeled and containing an overview of some aspect of earth or life science, such as Common Ground, which covers subjects like layers of the earth, rock cycle, fossils, landforms, and habitats, and Take a Hike, which covers anatomy of trees, bark, mushrooms, flowers & fruits of trees, ferns, mosses, and some foraging. One reference was noted to “billions” of years ago.

This is a part of Julia Rothman's original three-volume series, Farm Anatomy, Nature Anatomy, and Food Anatomy, that has now expanded to include Wildlife Anatomy and Ocean Anatomy. It is at first highly attractive, especially to homeschoolers  in the Charlotte Mason, unschooling, and wildschooling traditions, because it resembles a naturalist's own notebook, with pencil sketches and watercolor washes, labeled as if in the author's own hand. For this reason alone, it has value I think, to inspire a student toward nature journaling.

However, upon closer inspection, I find that the topics are covered very shallowly and the drawings are inaccurate enough in some instances to be distracting.

Especially egregious is the drawing of a moose on page 148 (all of the antlered/horned animals in that section are sub-par), and the pictures of snakes on page 142 could never actually be used to identify snakes in the wild.

So my feelings are mixed. As an INTRODUCTION to nature study it may work for very young children but I feel even they should have accurate renderings. Anyone in middle school, the age this book was intended for, should be ready for far more accurate drawings and far more detailed information than this overview can provide.

And the author realizes the inadequacies. As Ms Rothman states in her introduction, “There is no way to include even a small portion of the enormous world around us in a book of any size. Where does it end? There is an infinite amount to learn about, from the constellations to the core of the earth. I guess I think of this project as MY nature book. It's the information I was interested in learning about, the things I wanted to draw and paint.”

As a reference to the natural world, I personally would rather have a shelf-ful of local nature guides, and as an inspiration for nature notebooks, I'd rather have Edith Holden's volumes or some “how-to” books like the ones by Clare Walker Leslie & Charles E Roth, and Barry Stebbings on my shelf.