A Field Guide to Wonder

This field guide offers a response to the pioneering female conservationist, writer and scientist Rachel Carson, a gentle but powerful voice for nature, who, fifty years ago, wished for the good fairy to gift each child an indestructible ‘sense of wonder’. Using folklore, foraging, facts and beautiful illustrations, it reveals through informative and enchanting tales the wonder that can be found in everyday plants. It asks lots of questions and offers some curious answers. It explores how plants got their names, where they can be found, how you can eat, drink, and even make potions with them, and how the magic of these plants and their stories can root us to nature. Woven through and connecting all the plants’ stories are illustrations of three captivating elves, each of whom represent one of three wishes (blown on a dandelion at the outset). Wishes for us all to be curious, connected and kind to nature. Whether this guide is read in bedrooms, classrooms or fields, to yourself or aloud with others, it takes the reader on an educational and enchanting journey from the smallest of dandelion-seed details to the great sense of wonder in the everyday. It’s a small book, with really big ideas.