Wild Adventures: Look, Make, Explore—In Nature's Playground

Gr 3–5—In this companion to Nature Adventures (Frances Lincoln, 2011), the award-winning husband and wife team are back, this time showcasing entertaining ways to explore nature with the whole family. The book focuses on different activities, such as campfires, cloud watching, and animal tracking, and offers games and recipes. Loaded with details, each page is chock-full of captions, tips, and dialogue in speech bubble form spoken by different characters. Rendered in pencil and watercolor, the cartoonlike illustrations depict the subject admirably, though the layouts are occasionally on the cluttered side. Readers will get a rich sense of the different wildlife found in nature. The authors also offer precautions and suggestions, such as renting a canoe from an outdoor center, remembering to wear a life vest, and learning to swim. A note at the beginning reminds kids that this book should be read and shared with an adult.