JimZ's Reviews > Diary of a Young Naturalist

I wish I could say I liked this book but I didn’t. I feel like a Grinch by saying that because I already looked at stars that some of my GR friends gave this book and I think they were 4s and 5s. I don’t mind being the odd man out in a number of cases, but with this one I feel bad. An autistic kid writes a book about nature, and our need to save our planet, rather than hurting it, and I say I don’t like his book. How could I??? 😮 😲 😮 😲 I just have to be honest…

The premise of the book is good but maybe that is where I got messed up: I thought this was a diary lifted pretty much word-for-word from a kid’s diary. But it seemed while reading it that it wasn’t a dairy at least in some places. That it was being written for the eyes of other people— i.e., readers. And if that is the case, that’s OK, but why call it a diary then? Why don’t you just call it a memoir? The sentences were all carefully crafted. And in a lot of places I am sorry to say too flowery for my tastes. Just come out and say something rather than cloaking it with a ton of adjectives and adverbs.

And I dreaded it when he and his family visited yet another forest, or another park, or another nature center. Because then would come flowery descriptions of the birds he saw, or the insects he saw, etc. etc. etc. over and over and over again. Enough already!

There were some interesting parts of the book…like when he described how many times a certain bird flapped its wings in a minute…or how far a bird flew in a day…or how far birds flew without stopping. That sort of stuff fascinates me.

I think it was just too much for me….mind you, it wasn’t too much nature…it was his too-much descriptions of nature that was not my cup of tea.

I admire whatever he is doing as an ambassador of nature. And I wish him the very best. We need young people like him to do something…to be an activist…because God knows as he says in the book, a lot of us older folk are good for talk but we don’t want the walk. So kudos to him for that, and I suppose if the majority of people who read his book very much liked his book then that is a good thing.

Bottom line is that I liked the message, and I have nothing against the messenger, and I admire him for what he is doing. I guess I was disappointed that 1) it sure did not seem like a diary I was reading. It was too carefully structured to be like that. And 2) it went on and on and on and on about this bird and that bird ad nauseum. I mean…he could have made this book as two years in his life and would reviewers still be oohing and ahhing about this diary? When is it too much? I started to zone out after the first season of his diary.

OK, that’s enough. The Grinch has to make breakfast. 😐 😑 😬

Reviews:
• https://www.startribune.com/review-di...
• https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/bo...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
The reviews affirm that I am the odd person out. So enjoy the book and never mind me. 😊