Shining Dawn Books

One nature study question I hear quite often is, “Which field guide series is your favorite?”  Depending on the subject, I almost always answer National Audubon Society Field Guides.

Now, Melissa may differ with me and decide to put up a post about her favorites.  :)  But, for this post, I want to focus on why I like the Audubon guides best overall.

• They’re inexpensive!  At Amazon, most of them are right around $14.00.  That’s very affordable when purchasing one at a time over the span of several years.  (At least that’s the way I’ve done it!)

• They’re durable!  This would be very important to me even if I didn’t have three children who want to handle the books after they’ve romped in the creek or dug a critter out of the dirt!  The cover is vinyl, so dirties can be wiped off and it’s less likely to be bent traveling in a nature bag.  The pages are also tightly bound.  In fact, I’ve never had one of the Audubon guides lose a page or break at the binding.

• They’re small enough to fit in a nature bag, but big enough to have very clear pictures.

• They’re thorough.  It’s hard to be thorough in the world of nature because God is so awesome and creative!  But, even though the books can’t cover everything, I’ve found them to be quite helpful for identifying most things.

• They’re organized.  I’m a Martha Stewart at heart.  (My kids aren’t, but that’s another post for another day.)  I like when books are organized in a reasonable manner.  It doesn’t take us any time to figure out where to look in the book for a certain colored nature object or a certain size.  Pictures are categorized in the front half of the book with a very clear system that makes it so easy that children can locate things without much help.  In the back of the book you find detailed descriptions about each nature object such as – size, color, texture, range, season and much more.

So there you have it.  The “why” behind my general recommendation.  When I come across a field guide that stands out from Audubon, I’ll be sure to share it!  Which are your favorites?

~Cindy

Tags: field guide, identification, nature, nature guide, nature study

This entry was posted by Cindy on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Questions Answered. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.