Thank you Netgalley and Publishers for an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. As much as Nature fascinates me, I'm currently not a nature person so I truly have no credibility to support the factually of this novel. I think this best belongs in libraries, especially school/educational based ones to start conservations and research avenues on wilderness concepts. This isn't an all-encompassing novel but it is a starting point. I can totally see this as a reference book with the great images/descriptions but I think it's a novel that can be useful in conjunction with others and not as a standalone encyclopedia-style book.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review—a fantastic book with much information about knots, plats, and everything wilderness.

This was put together in a very useful and unique way - like a decision tree guiding you through identifying flora and fauna in different regions of North America: 'is it like this? If yes, go here, of no, go to this question' type of things. The problem is that the images are all drawings, not photographs, and the precision just isn't there to support identification.

A useful and beautiful study guide! Great reference guide to access information easily. The attention to detail is outstanding. This book shoukd be purchased a hard-copy as well as digital! A gorgeous reference. Thank you for the ARC. Recommend.

This book is a super basic introduction to the wild. If you are looking for a comprehensive field guide, look elsewhere. This one would be suitable for someone who has no experience in the outdoors and who wants a beginner-level introductory overview. The book itself was composed using content from several previously-published field guides by Nature Study Guild. One thing I thought was odd was that there is a section about constellations, but there is nothing about reptiles and amphibians.

There are sections covering regions of the U.S. and including plants, trees, mammals, birds, and constellations. The information covered is not in-depth. For example, there are only a few trees in the keys. The plants and ferns had a bit more content in the keys, but nothing close to a comprehensive look at what can be found in each region. I think the idea was good, but that there just wasn’t enough space in the book to cover each of these subjects thoroughly enough. That’s why this is best used as an introductory guide.

Some of the information is outdated, such as the scientific names of many organisms. Some examples:

North American River Otter is named Lutra canadensis in the book. However, the correct name is Lontra canadensis.

The Canada Lynx is called Felis lynx in the book. The correct name, since 2003, is Lynx canadensis.

Mountain lion is called Felis concolor in the book. The correct name, since 2005, is Puma concolor.

Some names are incorrect for the region, such as:

The Virginia Opossum is native to parts of the U.S., but the scientific name given for this animal was Didelphis marsupialis, which is actually the species that is found in South America, called the common opossum. The Virginia Opossum is Didelphis virginiana.

There are some incorrect items in the book, such as the following.

“All cat droppings are partially buried.” This is not true. While cats do sometimes bury their scats, it is very common to find the scats of bobcats and mountain lions exposed with no attempt to bury them.

A dead animal hanging from a tree branch as an indicator of predation by a lynx or mountain lion. This is incorrect information. There is no documented evidence that either of these cats takes prey into trees to consume it, or to store it. There are documented instances of scavenging gray foxes taking carcass remains into trees, however.

The animal track illustrations are not very accurate, but that is true of most field guides that were not written by trackers. It would be difficult to correctly identify an animal track using these illustrations alone. I recommend getting a full tracking field guide for that purpose.

In summary, this guide would be good as a very basic introduction, to get someone interested in learning more about nature. It will not function as a stand-alone field guide.

I didn't get to finish this, but i did enjoy what i read of it. I though it was filled with a lot of useful and interesting information and someone could learn a lot from it.

Imaginative and informative, you want to be guided through nature by How to Read the Wilderness! Just like the nature around us, there is so much to love about this book, much of which may not meet the eye immediately. I think Nature Study Guild's organization is the unsung hero of it all, for the way it is explored categorically by region and species makes it soothing and palatable to readers who enjoy orderly process but also easy to jump between for those who enjoy a varied absorption of material. The thoughts conveyed are light yet loaded, just like a camp backpack. It does the job while still being able to last the whole journey of the book!

I am sincerely contemplating whether to let someone else gift me this book or go ahead and obtain it myself. Let the adventures begin!

Many thanks to Chronicle Books and NetGalley for the chance to explore its landscape.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. This was a very well written and very in depth book. It was interesting to read and learn the various things seen in nature and what we can learn from it. The in depth drawings were definitely a plus. I really liked the pages about various features or locations of trees to help identify the species. I liked that the book was a good mix of nature and not just a book on trees or animals.

What a wonderful resource! How to Read the Wilderness is an excellent nature study guide. I consider myself to be a big nature lover and to know a lot about nature and I learned so much from this book.
The topics are organized in a logical way that makes it very user friendly. The content is both clear and concise. I recommend this to anyone who has an interest in learning more about nature!

Thank you to Chronicle Books and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book.
Lovely, full of advice nature guide. I learned a lot of new information and I thought the black and white drawings. Overall, an informative book of the United States. Will be a great reference book for homeschooling.

How to Read the Wilderness by Nature Study Guild is an information packed book on identifying different plants and animals and even locating stars and constellations. I really enjoyed how the information is broken up by category and then by location and the simple yet beautiful illustrations are highly detailed and would be a great help in identifying the nature around you. I will be using this as a reference book for nature walks and nature studies and recommending it to the other families in my co-op. This is a wonderful reference book that all homeschoolers should have on their shelf!

While a beautiful book, and one that might provide a very basic overview of natural features of the entire United States, How To Read The Wilderness falls short in practicality.

It utilizes a very basic dichotomous key system without explaining what it is or how each set of choices relies on an arbitrary simplified dichotomy. I think the section on "Trees of the Central and Eastern United States and Canada" was where I really started questioning the purpose and functionality of this guide. There was a pretty cool and useful overview of habitats and shapes of trees, that then was followed up by ... a section on identifying Spruce? A beginner naturalist might not know whether the tree they're looking at is a spruce or some other conifer, and using this section's key, might arrive at the conclusion that the hemlock they're examining is instead a Black Spruce. This is followed by "Identifying Willows," "Identifying Deciduous Trees in Winter," and "Identifying Maples in Winter" (which, maples are deciduous trees? Did we learn how to identify them in summer? Where are the oaks? Maybe an overview of the other types of trees one might encounter in the Eastern deciduous forest?). On the other side of the coin, a more experienced naturalist will be left confused at best. I did like some of the tidbits of information sprinkled throughout, like the examples of indusium shapes, but they seemed out of place in a guide that neglected to mention how to tell basic leaf shapes apart. And this is a problem in each section. I think the creators of this guide had a broad and grand vision that was too large to fit within these covers.

Recommended for readers who want a beautiful book with a vintage aesthetic who don't mind double checking other sources to ensure they have complete and accurate information.

What an absolutely fantastic nature guide How to Read the Wilderness is!!! I have become quite obsessed with this book. There is so much to love here but what especially stood out to me is how organized and easy to read this book is. I love how it was arranged and the various topics topics it covered in an orderly way, from trees and flowers to the ocean and the night sky in their various regions of North America. The information was thorough and rich in detail without being wordy and exhausting, much of which I believe is the helpful and enjoyable diagrams and illustrations on all of the pages throughout. For this reason, I can comfortably say that this book would not only be enjoyed by adults but also elementary ages nature enthusiasts as well.

This book is honestly just so fun to flip through and I’m absolutely thrilled by it. There is so much to learn here and from cover to cover there are interesting facts. This book would make a perfect gift, coffee table book, or travel companion to pack away on your next adventure!

Many thanks to Chronicle Books and NetGalley for the gifted e-copy!

This book will educate nature lovers. There are chapters on flowers, fruits & ferns; mammals & birds; the ocean, and the night sky. Throughout there are appealing drawings, along with maps and other resources like identification keys.

Each section of this book is quite detailed. For example, the section on trees is carefully broken down by regions as, for example, trees of the southwestern desert.

This title is absolutely packed with information. Readers may want to hone in on the area where they live or a place where they plan to travel for this book to be most helpful. It then provides an excellent resource for someone who seriously wants to know more about their environment. I especially enjoyed a section on birds of my area.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for this title. All opinions are my own.

Extremely educational. Tells you about all kinds of things in the wild and gives you pictures and descriptions. Has sections for trees, plans, animals, the ocean, and the stars. Would be extremely useful for people that like to hike or camp!

As an avid outdoors person with a shelf full of identification guidebooks, I was intrigued by this book that appeared to be an all-in-one guide. It covers trees, flowers, birds, mammals, oceans, and constellations, so a lot more breadth than a typical guide. To gain this breadth, they don't go into the depth of single-subject identification guidebooks. Before I get to details, I want to mention that this book discusses these areas in broad geographic regions in the United States. They provide select examples which are far from comprehensive. The illustrations are line drawings which, at least for the flowers, would be difficult to use for identification. That said, it would be a great starter book for exploring the outdoors. It covers the process of identification, what to look for to make an identification. For the section on trees and ocean, the geography and habitat are also discussed both for explaining the ecosystem and for helping to identify species. The mammal section includes animal track patterns. The lengthy constellation section includes info from a variety of cultures. Overall, I would recommend this book for newbie outdoors people looking to start learning about what they are seeing. Those familiar with traditional comprehensive guidebooks will find the selectivity frustrating for identification purposes. I can see this book being an accessible entry point for many people to begin exploring and understanding the world around them.

How to Read the Wilderness: An Illustrated Guide to the Natural Wonders of North America provides diagrams and symbols to help identify trees, flowers, fruits and ferns, mammals and birds, the ocean, and the night sky in North America. The illustrations are detailed and easy to understand. The book itself if very simply organized, so this could be utilized by students as well as adults.

Honestly, I was impressed by the organization of this book. I thought it would be more wordy. Instead the diagrams, symbols, maps, and descriptions help anyone identify different organisms, environments, and celestial objects.

Thanks Chronicle Books and Netgalley for giving the opportunity to access this ARC. Although my school library is not in North America, I will be suggesting this book to my fellow librarian friends in the US.

As a nature lover and someone who likes to be able to i.d. flora/fauna this is a nice guide. I think it would work best as a physical edition with how sections are laid out within the book. You'll be flipping through pages quite a bit.

It's very general and probably focuses on the most popular plants/animals, so this would be great for those with little to no knowledge of the outside world. I did enjoy the illustrations but they seemed a bit bare-boned especially because there are so many plants that look wildly similar that you need extreme detail to i.d. them properly so I admit I hoped for more detailed illustrations but this is purely a personal preference.

How to Read the Wilderness is a comprehensive guide to the flora and fauna of North America. There was an absolute ton of information presented in a clear and concise way. It is much like a textbook but isn't boring at all. This is useful to anyone who enjoys nature and the outdoors. I loved this book and cannot wait to own a physical copy. Thank you to NetGalley for the copy.

This was a really interesting book! I really liked how it was structured and I learned a lot about each region that was discussed. This book is centered on the United States/North America, which is understandable of course, but I think I would love to see other books like this for other regions as well. I really liked how the illustrations in the books were outlined and how they used the illustrations and aspects of them to point the reader to other similar plants - kind of like a choose your own adventure but for plants, animals, and stars! This was a really fascinating book and I am so excited to get a copy when this is published for my own reference. A great book, useful for anyone who wants to understand the natural world around them, filled with cool illustrations, awesome tips for identifying different aspects you may see, and easy to understand and find information in.