Join two best friends—a mole and vole—on their everyday expeditions to find beautiful plants, meet new animals, and learn more about the world all around them in this nonfiction graphic novel. Each day, Mole and Vole venture out into the world – never forgetting their nature journal! – to see what they can find in their own backyard. From pigeons and jumping spiders to swamp milkweed and maple trees, these two explorers get to know every part of their local environment. But after an accidental move from the country to the city, Mole and Vole worry that everything will be different. As they explore, they discover plants to look at and animals to meet in their new home as well. The story of these two best friends brings to life a nonfiction adventure of finding wonder in nature everywhere – no matter where you live. This book concludes with fun activities for kids to do at home.

Join two best friends—a mole and vole—on their everyday expeditions to find beautiful plants, meet new animals, and learn more about the world all around them in this nonfiction graphic novel. Each day, Mole and Vole venture out into the world – never forgetting their nature journal! – to see what they can find in their own backyard. From pigeons and jumping spiders to swamp milkweed and maple trees, these two explorers get to know every part of their local environment. But after an accidental move from the country to the city, Mole and Vole worry that everything will be different. As they explore, they discover plants to look at and animals to meet in their new home as well. The story of these two best friends brings to life a nonfiction adventure of finding wonder in nature everywhere – no matter where you live. This book concludes with fun activities for kids to do at home.

After years of adventuring around the globe – running, kayaking, hitchhiking, exploring – Beau Miles came back to his block in country Victoria. Staying put for the first time in years, Beau developed a new kind of lifestyle as the Backyard Adventurer. Whether it was walking 90km to work with no provisions, building a canoe paddle out of scavenged scrap or running a disused railway line through properties, blackberry thickets and past inquiring police officers, Beau has been finding ways to satisfy his adventurous spirit close to home. This book is about conscious experimentation with adventure, making meaning and inspiration out of tins of beans, bits of rubbish and elbow grease. Beau’s Backyard exploits are funny, authentic, insightful and being copied all over the world by everyday people. YouTuber, new dad, and self-described oddball who needs to shower more, Beau is what happens when you cross Bear Grylls with Bush Tucker Man. With a PhD in Outdoor Education, a string of successful short films under his belt and a boundless passion for discovery, Beau is the real deal.

Two children plan a camping adventure and set up a tent in their own backyard, but when the pickles run out and mosquitos arrive, they are ready to find Dad.

Born to Explore is filled with skills, projects, and essential knowledge for the budding adventurer Explorer extraordinaire Richard Wiese's more than one hundred excellent projects show how to have fun with science and nature, how to not always take the most walked path, and how to learn to "read" the natural world. Discovery does not occur just in the Amazon or deep in the ocean. It happens everywhere around us: Navigate by the stars, Tell time without a watch, Start a fire without a match, Make an igloo, Build your own canoe, And be prepared for any challenge.

“Let’s get lost together . . . ” Lost in My Own Backyard brings acclaimed author Tim Cahill together with one of his—and America’s—favorite destinations: Yellowstone, the world’s first national park. Cahill has been “puttering around in the park” for a quarter of a century, slowly covering its vast scope and exploring its remote backwoods. So does this mean that he knows what he’s doing? Hardly. “I live fifty miles from the park,” says Cahill, “but proximity does not guarantee competence. I’ve spent entire afternoons not knowing exactly where I was, which is to say, I was lost in my own backyard.” Cahill stumbles from glacier to geyser, encounters wildlife (some of it, like bisons, weighing in the neighborhood of a ton), muses on the microbiology of thermal pools, gets spooked in the mysterious Hoodoos, sees moonbows arcing across waterfalls at midnight, and generally has a fine old time walking several hundred miles while contemplating the concept and value of wilderness. Mostly, Cahill says, “I have resisted the urge to commit philosophy. This is difficult to do when you’re alone, twenty miles from the nearest road, and you’ve just found a grizzly bear track the size of a pizza.” Divided into three parts—“The Trails,” which offers a variety of favorite day hikes; “In the Backcountry,” which explores three great backcountry trails very much off the beaten track; and “A Selected Yellowstone Bookshelf,” an annotated bibliography of his favorite books on the park—this is a hilarious, informative, and perfect guide for Yellowstone veterans and first-timers alike. Lost in My Own Backyard is adventure writing at its very best.

“If you’ve ever fantasized walking and conversing with the great scientist on the subjects that consumed him, and now wish to add the fullness of reality, read this book.” —Edward O. Wilson, author of Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life James T. Costa takes readers on a journey from Darwin’s childhood through his voyage on the HMS Beagle, where his ideas on evolution began, and on to Down House, his bustling home of forty years. Using his garden and greenhouse, the surrounding meadows and woodlands, and even the cellar and hallways of his home-turned-field-station, Darwin tested ideas of his landmark theory of evolution through an astonishing array of experiments without using specialized equipment. From those results, he plumbed the laws of nature and drew evidence for the revolutionary arguments of On the Origin of Species and other watershed works. This unique perspective introduces us to an enthusiastic correspondent, collaborator, and, especially, an incorrigible observer and experimenter. And it includes eighteen experiments for home, school, or garden. Finalist for the 2018 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prizes for Excellence in Science Books.