Sometimes you just step into a book and let it wash over you, like you're swimming under a big, sparkling night sky.

I know Smyth for his writing on birds (A Sweet, Wild Note and An Indifference of Birds) and his somewhat controversial commentary on modern nature writing. This represents a change in direction for him toward more personal reflection, and with its focus on the phenomena of childhood and parenthood it recalls Wild Child by Patrick Barkham and The Nature Seed by Lucy Jones and Kenneth Greenway. But, as I knew to expect from previous works, he has such talent for reeling in the tangential and extrapolating from the concrete to the abstract that this lively read ends up being about everything: what it is to be human on this fading planet.

And this despite the fact that four of five chapter headings suggest pandemic-specific encounters with nature. Lockdown walks with his two children, and the totems they found in different habitats – also including a chaffinch nest and an owl pellet – are indeed jumping-off points, punctuating a wide-ranging account of life with nature. Smyth surveys the gateway experiences, whether books or television shows or a school tree-planting programme or collecting, that get young people interested; and talks about the people who beckon us into greater communion – sometimes authors and celebrities; other times friends and family. He also engages with questions of how to live in awareness of climate crisis. He acknowledges that he should be vegetarian, but isn’t; who does not harbour such everyday hypocrisies?

It’s still, unfortunately, rare for men to write about parenthood (and especially pregnancy loss – I only think of Native by Patrick Laurie and William Henry Searle’s books), so it’s great to see that represented, and it’s a charming idea that we create “downfamily” because the “upfamily” doesn’t last forever. Although there’s nostalgia for his childhood here, and anxiety about his kids’ chances of seeing wildlife in abundance, Smyth doesn’t get mired in the past or in existential dread. He has a humanist belief that people are essentially good and can do positive things like build offshore wind farms, and in the meantime he will take Genevieve and Daniel into the woods to play so they will develop a sense of wonder at all that lives on. Even for someone like me who doesn’t have children, this was a captivating, thought-provoking read: We’re all invested in the future of life on this planet.

I was really looking forward to reading this Book as when I grew up various people taught me a lot about the Nature around us & I always loved collecting bits to take to School for the Nature Table , some thing I continued with our children & my daughters name also happens to be Genevieve& she now does the same with her own children all be it 7,000 miles away in Japan ! plus I have carried on the tradition with our eldest granddaughter here in the UK.
The only reason I've given the Book 3 Stars is because some sections were rather too long winded & I started to loose interest . #NetGally, #GoodReads, #Amazon.co.uk, #FB, #Instagram, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/358a5cecda71b11036ec19d9f7bf5c96d13e2c55" width="80" height="80" alt="100 Book Reviews" title="100 Book Reviews"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/ef856e6ce35e6d2d729539aa1808a5fb4326a415" width="80" height="80" alt="Reviews Published" title="Reviews Published"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/aa60c7e77cc330186f26ea1f647542df8af8326a" width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>.

This an enjoyable, thoughtful musing on the importance of nature in all our lives, with particular emphasis on the need for our children to explore, examine, and question the natural world around them. Smyth slips between stories of his childhood to those of his two young children. His writing style meanders between past and present. While some may find this erratic, I enjoyed following his thought process and interpretation of his experiences.

Thank you to #Netgalley and #Iconbooks for allowing me access to the ARC.

Wow. This book took me places. I wasn’t expecting it to hit me as much as it did but wow. It’s more than a nature book. It’s more than a book to include your kids in the natural world. It touches upon so many things and written so so well I just couldn’t put it down. It exceeded my expectations and then some !! And can we just appreciate the humour the author has too? He had me laughing out loud (and tearing up goddamnyou!) but I was hanging off every word.

I think I must have annihilated the book in a day as it was so effortless. Easy to pick up, easy to read and easy to keep reading. It felt like a privilege that Richard was sharing these memories with us, the memories and moments of his family and his experiences. And one that I am grateful for.

The topics were broad and interesting, with smatterings of influential literature that Richard has found throughout his life and for his kids. He touched upon so many important subjects with ease and without preach, from eating meat free to climate change. Everything written was to point out and state and not to attack which is always appreciated when reading books on such difficult topics that people can easily take offense over either way! So kudos.

It’s a book that I would read again no doubt. It’s worthy of its five stars and worthy of some shelf space! Loved it.

Nature writing really is one of my top genres at the moment and this book was delightful as it charts Smyth's exploration of the natural world through the eyes of his children.
In many ways it reminded me of Patrick Barkham's work on nature and children but this was so gentle and personal that I found it hard to put down.

The theme of childhood nature adventures that Smyth remembers compared to what he learns with his family is a novel idea of trying to balance the memories of, for example, rock pooling and the reality of today's sessions is interesting. He does gently ask how many of the differences are caused by rose tinted memories of halcyon days and how much is caused by global warming. The latter is not denied and is firmly backed up with science but it is an interesting thought to explore - everything did seem bigger and better in the past...

Nature and wilderness often receive ponderous, dramatized treatment that undercuts the messages. From its very title, ”The Jay, The Beech and the Limpetshell: Finding Wild Things with My Kids” takes another tack. A fluent, intelligent stylist, Richard Smyth opts this time for a gentle, undemonstrative style that matches his framework, his meanderings with his young family through the wilds and not-so-wilds of Yorkshire. Artfully peppering his musings with reflections on the musings of others, the author illuminates key issues in our human connections with nature (especially in a country as far from true wildness as England). The author muses about what his parental focus on wandering in the wild will lead to with his children: "...they'll figure out, soon enough, what they want to do about it all. Maybe just watch. Maybe just think. Maybe just care. That's fine too." Such clear, conversational language conveys so much impact! And do not mistake the pared down language in this book as lack of sophistication; I had to look up a number of strange, most apt words such as "lour" (look angry or sullen). An undercurrent of climate change dread surfaces again and again, yet the author confesses that much of his own behavior is conditioned by his past. As soon as I concluded The Jay, the Beech and the Limpetshell, I diarised a second reading, this is one book that is bound to keep revealing.