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Featuring over 100 new photographs and updates throughout. Are you ready for a glimpse into the dark, subterranean world of the star-nosed mole? A barred owl's late-winter call to take on new meaning? The life cycle of the eastern newt to suddenly seem complex, beautiful, and intricately bound to mysterious underwater landscapes and damp forest floors? Naturalist and environmental educator Mary Holland's visually astounding book Naturally Curious promises a walk in the woods (or a field or wetland) will never be the same.
With boundless enthusiasm and a lifetime's-worth of natural history knowledge, Holland escorts you through the New England seasons, month by month – in sun, rain, and snow; along roadsides and riverbanks; above burrows and under treetop nesting sites. Beginning with March and its early stirrings of life "awakening" after a long cold winter, and ending in February as survival becomes the sole focus of all plants and creatures, great and small, Holland provides hundreds of fascinating "Nature Notes". These bite-sized nuggets of fact-based information detail a species' actions in a particular month – whether courting, breeding, singing, burrowing, migrating, or caching food, for example. In addition, you'll find pertinent lists of the amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects and arachnids, and plants and fungi you might expect to see or hear from as the weeks go by.
But that's not all: Each month culminates in specially chosen essays, where Holland gets up-close-and-personal with New England plant and animal life and some of their more intriguing typicalities and peculiarities, illustrating their impact on the region and those who share it. Throughout, the many exciting and varied "worlds" of the Northeast explode upon the page in an unmatched visual display of full-colour photographs. From the minutiae (the migration of the tiny snow flea on a warm winter's day) to the massive (the wallowing practices of the bull moose in rut) this is the region and its inhabitants like you've never seen them before.
By deftly melding the practical field guide we all need with the kind of book we all want to sit back and read, Holland does New England – and those who live in it, visit it, and love it – an immense service. Adults and children alike are sure to be fascinated by the natural world in this book, in their backyard, and even further afield. Naturally Curious is truly an "into this world" experience.
Mary Holland is a Vermont naturalist, photographer, columnist, and author. She attended the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources before working as a naturalist at the Museum of the Hudson Highlands in New York, directing the state-wide Environmental Learning for the Future program for the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, working as a resource naturalist for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, designing and presenting hands-on "Knee-High Nature Programs" for libraries and elementary schools throughout Vermont and New Hampshire, and writing and photographing a nature column called Naturally Curious for several newspapers and magazines. Her articles and photographs have appeared in the Valley News, Northern Woodlands, The Outside Story, Upper Valley Life, Here in Hanover, Woodstock magazine, the Harvard Press, the Vermont Guardian, and the Rutland Herald. She is the author of National Outdoor Book Award winner Naturally Curious.
"Naturally Curious is a lovely book for the general public. Holland, a naturalist, wildlife photographer, and writer, provides an engaging introduction to the complexity of nature's interactions. Full of photos, most of which are from the author, the book also contains numerous charming illustrations. There are chapters for each month, arranged by season, starting with spring, so that March is the first chapter and February is the last. It would also be an excellent resource for the homeschooler as well as the lay reader enrolled in a class on science writing. Summing Up: Recommended."
– Choice
"Naturally Curious will undoubtedly compel many readers to go outside at any time of year to see in nature what Ms. Holland so deftly explains in her book. It is filled with useful information, whether you are a skilled naturalist or someone just beginning to know and love nature."
– Laura Johnson, president, Massachusetts Audubon Society
"Mary Holland offers an encyclopedia of nature in New England – really, the Northeast – lavishly illustrated and rich in fact and lore. You know she knows the fauna and flora of which she writes, because this patient and experienced observer has documented what she's seen with more than 700 of her own splendid photographs."
– Jack Sanders, author, The Secrets of Wildflowers
"This may be the ultimate book for nature-curious New Englanders. Not only is it smart and comprehensive, it's laid out in a way that corresponds with how we actually see the world around us: not one group of species at a time but all at once – birds and frogs and plants and everything else – what a treat!"
– Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature, and founder, 350.org
"Naturally Curious is a top-shelf book I'll reach for often. If the camera had been invented in Thoreau's day, this is the book he would have created himself."
– W. D. Wetherell, author, The Smithsonian Guide to Natural America
"What a wonderful book! It's a guided tour of the noteworthy natural happenings of each month, tying together everything from maples to mayflies to moose."
– David Sibley, author, The North American Bird Guide and The Sibley Guide to Trees
"I'd like to recommend this great new book by Mary Holland, which is focused on New England. Every biozone should have such a book."
– Richard Louv, Audubon Medal winner and bestselling author, Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle
"This book is a must-have for all curious naturalists. Organized by the month, Holland covers numerous and varied species found in New England, from insects, amphibians, and reptiles, to birds, mammals, and plants. Very well illustrated with color photos throughout, it's all there, ready to enrich your life throughout the year."
– Paul Rezendes, author/photographer, Tracking & The Art of Seeing and The Wild Within
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