The Lost Words

By Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris (illustrator),

Book cover of The Lost Words

Book description

Penguin presents the CD edition of The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane, read by Edith Bowman, Guy Garvey, Cerys Matthews and Benjamin Zephaniah.

All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. Words like Dandelion, Otter, Bramble, Acorn and Lark represent the natural world of childhood, a rich


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Why read it?

4 authors picked The Lost Words as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book is by one of my favourite nature writers of all time, Robert Macfarlane. It’s a picture book that is for humans of all ages, truly. His poetry makes for a beautiful read aloud, the illustrations by Jackie Morris are stunning and the size of it makes for an immersive experience. I absolutely loved reading it with my kids when they were a little younger and we all piled into my bed. I also believe that it works
 the poems are ‘spells’ designed to bring certain words back into use since they were cut from the Junior Oxford English


The story behind The Lost Words began when a widely-used children’s dictionary removed many everyday words associated with nature. These included florals like the bluebell, heather, fern, as well as many animals. Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris created this spell book to conjure the lost magic of the missing flora and fauna. The paintings in this book are full of movement, intrigue, and magic. The cover features the most beautiful dandelion illustration I have ever seen, and let me tell you firsthand, they are far from the easiest flowers to draw!

From Jessica's list on illustrated florals.

Sonnet 98 begins: “From you have I been absent in the spring”—The Lost Words articulates aspects of springtime that are ever more absent from our world: Acorn, Heather, Fern, Buttercup, Bramble
 Words such as these have been taken out of children’s books, he says, and hence, out of their voices, their stories, their experience of the world. MacFarlane is a master of making us see them again in the concise lyricism of an acrostic poem and expansive illustrations—restoring the words & the worlds they inhabit with their inherent joy. It’s a big book, but if portable is more your


What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

By Sharman Apt Russell,

Book cover of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

Sharman Apt Russell Author Of Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and Other New Ways of Engaging the World

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Explorer Runner Mother

Sharman's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks left by browsing deer, predatory weasels, and inquisitive bears, skunks, and raccoons. Master tracker Kim A Cabrera provides photos and illustrations.

Winner of the prestigious John Burroughs Medal, Russell also writes about community, a sense of place, and a renewed connection with the nonhuman world. She explores the health of


What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

By Sharman Apt Russell,

What is this book about?

Did a red fox pass this way? Could that be a bobcat print there in the dirt? Do those tracks belong to a domestic dog or a coyote? Combining lyrical memoir with an introduction to wildlife tracking, What Walks This Way explores the joys of learning to recognize the traces of the creatures with whom we share our world.

The nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife-mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice-near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. With wit and compassion, she guides readers through



This giant book draws attention to the lost words of nature through epic illustration and design, rich watercolour depictions of the natural world are combined with gold backdrops and beautiful poetry. Focusing on British wildlife the book invites the reader to recall once familiar terms, a ‘charm of goldfinches’, the otter, the weasel, and the wren are celebrated, names of wildlife countryside once familiar that now seem to be fading as climate change impacts the populations of our most beloved species. A beautifully large portfolio of art and words that is a wonderful ‘book of spells.’

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