I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. Great, fun, ideas for learning in the outdoors.

My kids and I absolutely loved this book. We enjoyed the information, pictures, and how it encouraged us to get out more in nature. I loved how it motivated my kids to be more curious about animals around them and animals we don’t have near. It also sparked new conversation that lead us to research and learn more. As a homeschooling family and scouts family we really enjoyed this book. We would highly recommended for a multitude of ages as well. My kids are 10 and 7 and enjoyed it so much!

The Animal Adventurer's Guide is a field guide for young readers, facilitators/educators/parents, and others who use a significant amount of time in company with youngsters written by Susie Spikol. Released 13th Sept 2022 by Roost Books, it's 136 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is a safety conscious, accessible, and engaging guide for youngsters and their adults to get outside and find and observe wildlife in their own habitats. The book is split into chapters focusing on birds, mammals, herps, arthropods, and other inverts. The introduction does a nice job of introducing some tools, supplies, and general info on safety and responsibility, as well as providing some activities for making simple items and packing a field bag.

It's well written in understandable basic language and new concepts and glossary are explained in context as well as in activity sidebars. Acquired goals and skills are listed in each subchapter. The text is enhanced throughout by engaging illustrations by Becca Hall.

Five stars. This is a helpful and engaging field guide and would be an excellent choice for public or school library acquisition, home use (homeschooling?), activity and scouting groups, and similar.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A fantastic guide for connecting with nature and wildlife!

This fantastic guide for kids reminds us to pay attention, practice kindness, stay safe, and leave nature better than we found it.
It's filled with facts, DIY activities, prompts for field journaling, and more, and has chapters specific to birds, mammals, herps, arthropods, and other invertebrates so your child can find and observe their favorite critters!

The activities range in age group so this would be perfect for multiple-age children or kids with differing skill sets. Some are as easy as making toilet paper roll binoculars while others have lengthy instructions and multiple steps.

This adventure guide is perfect for children and families that love being outdoors or want to get closer to nature, armed with the safest ways to get out, observe, and interact with the wildlife around us. It will definitely prompt you to get out there and have fun learning!


"The small things in nature--the things we can hold, touch, or lie down next to and watch closely--these are the things that open our hearts as children. These are what remind us of our connection to one another."

Looking for a fun way to get started in nature studies? Or just have a child who's curious about all things wildlife? Or maybe you have one of those kids who just can't wait to get their hands on a snake? Or follow a trail of ants in the backyard? Then you'll find this Animal Adventurer's Guide a great place to start!

Filled with creative illustrations and 50 activities to get kids started in nature study, this guide is full of information. Divided into categories like birds, mammals, reptiles, etc, it's a great reference for learning more about the world around us. We loved this book. It was a great mix between information and activity, allowing my kiddos to learn from reading and experience. We plan to use it to expand our nature study in the coming year.

*Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

This is a great ready for anyone with outdoorsy little ones! My girls enjoyed a number of activities in this book. Would have been great to have this in print as a reference

Contains 50 to get kids engaged nature. Some are a little simplistic, but all would be fun, especially for younger children. Most can be done in your own backyard.

This was a fun read! My son loved it. I love that it provides education in it. I feel like he learned a lot and I've read it several times per his request.

This is a great little adventure book with fun facts and tons of awesome things to do! It's a great tool to help you explore the outdoors.

This is a nice book of animal activities for kids but I had hoped for a little bit more. There are simple illustrations but no photos or in depth illustrations of the projects. The instructions tend to be long and the activities are not that interesting. They are things like listen to the dawn chorus (birds), look for animal tracks, try to catch a frog or a snake, etc. While I appreciate instructions on how to gently catch and hold animals (and to release them where you found them soon after), I tend to vote to just leave wildlife alone, too.

There were a few activities that did strike me as interesting, such as making a food lure in a tube and covering the inside with charcoal powder to see the tracks of the small animal that went into the tube for the food. Some I didn't really think much of, like making "binoculars" out of toilet paper tubes. Yes, the child may focus more on something when looking through the tubes but it's a little childish for all but the youngest of kids. Likewise, some of the instructions weren't as good as what we've done in our family, like taking apart owl pellets. We find ours in the wild and what we were taught by our friend who is a naturalist and teacher (and homeschool mom) is to wet them and tease them apart with two sets of tweezers to get the tiny bones. This book said to order them online and to snap them in half to get the bones out. We always tried to assemble the skeletons and ID the remains, which requires much more careful handling. I'm also not a fan of the way the author talks about these things, using words like barf for owl pellets and other words that are neither scientific or classy.

It's still a fun book, but I'd recommend it as a library read to see if it's a good fit for your young adventurers.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

Loved the idea behind & the content of this book - can't wait to build my toilet-roll binoculars and take the kids out on the hunt. Excellent!

When I requested this book, I had my nephews in mind. As a family that loves the outdoors, we were raised catching bugs and lizards and exploring. My nephews have a very similar upbringing. This book has some fun activities for kids to do – although some are a little more challenging depending on where you live, like a crowded city vs. suburb vs. rural life.

One of the first things I noticed was this is not a book I could just hand to my nephews and have them go find animal track or scat on their own. The instructions are rather long, so seem more for older students; but the illustrations and activities are more directed towards younger. Either the kids will need parents support in the majority of it or students have to be pretty efficient readers because some of the instructs are long. I like the parts about “Skills You’ll Learn” and “Things You’ll Need,” which include things like Ninja-like moves. Overall, I am not sure what age level to put the book. There are activities in here you probably wouldn’t want your child attempting on their own (Dissecting owl pellets), but when they are out exploring you want them to think about stuff like this.

Thank you Netgalley and Roost Books for this ARC. This is a very cool book and extremely beneficial for teaching kids about animals and nature.

Loved this animal adventures guide that helps kids id animals. Fun for kids and adults alike. to learn about animals.

The reason for the lower rating is that I do not support the teaching of touching and handling of wild animals. They are not pets or toys and even if done "correctly", they are not ours to touch and they should be let be. This book would be 5-stars otherwise.

Thankfully, the majority of this book is non-invasive and focuses mainly on observering. These parts are very well done and highly interesting. The layout of information and activities is fun and engaging.

The contents are birds, mammals, herps, arthropods, and other invertebrates. You get tips to how to explore the wild life that is all around you, e.g the birds or the little snail on the ground. You also get to learn how to spy on animals, be creative with journals, and other stuff like camouflaging.

I’ve always been quite fond of birds, and always when we go to places where birds are I have to take a look. They are such fascinating creatures. A few days ago we went to the city, me and my mom, and we found where the birds use to sleep. The birds were all sleeping peacefully; they were so many! It was like my inner child screamed out “Look!!” and it made me so happy.

I really liked the message that you should tune out the world and look at the wildlife that is all around us, wether we live out on the country side or in the city, we share our space with wild animals. It’s amazing!

The artwork was both fun and pretty, which made the text better to read. A lot of interesting stuff packed in this book. A book to look forward to read! I recommend it!

Happy reading♥️

Such clever drawings and fun activities for kiddos! The layout is lovely - chapters dedicated to different types of animals and full of adventures for the little explorers to go on. I particularly liked the scavenger hunt options at the end of each chapter, but all of the activities provided are detailed and contain in depth instructions plus lists of the supplies needed. A great way to encourage kids to get outside and look at the wild world all around them.