Field Trips: Bug Hunting, Animal Tracking, Bird-watching, Shore Walking

Jim Arnosky (Author, Illustrator)

With Jim Arnosky as your guide, an ordinary hike becomes an eye-opening experience. He'll help you spot a hawk soaring far overhead and note the details of a dragonfly up close. Study the black-and-white drawings -- based on his own field research -- and you'll discover if those tracks in the brush were made by a deer or a fox.

In his celebrated style, this author, artist, and naturalist enthusiastically shares a wealth of tips. Jim Arnosky wants you to enjoy watching wildlife. He carefully explains how field marks, shapes, and location give clues for identifying certain plants and animals wherever you are. He gives hints for sharpening observational skills. And he encourages you to draw and record birds, insects, shells, animal tracks, and other finds from a busy day's watch.

Jim Arnosky has been honored for his overall contribution to literature for children by the Eva L. Gordon Award and the Washington Post/Children's Book Guild Award for nonfiction. Many of his over fifty-five books have been chosen as ALA Notable Books by the American Library Association, including Drawing from Nature, a Christopher Award-winner.

The acclaimed artist and naturalist was inspired at an early age by the work of the American naturalists John Burroughs and Ernest Thompson Seton. For many years he concentrated on showing readers close-up pictures of the natural wonders found around his home in northern Vermont, where he and his wife, Deanna, raised their daughters, Michele and Amber.

Now, with both daughters married, Jim and Deanna have taken to exploring for wildlife in different parts of the United States. Wild and Swampy reflects their fascination with Southern swamplands and the creatures that live there.