Description
First published in May this captivating book is now the winner of the 2020 Wainwright Prize for UK Nature writing. Dara writes with a skill and a maturity that many two or three times his age would struggle to match or exceed. As he enters his fourteenth year he vividly chronicles the passing of the seasons from spring to summer, autumn to winter and his writing records funny, sad, raw, candid and affirming moments. The book sets out in a diary format how this autistic young Northern Irish naturalist and campaigner sees and experiences the world around him and the everyday beauty of nature on his home patch, at school, in the wild and in his head. His interest in, love and respect for and his knowledge of nature is abundantly clear in each of his diary entries over the course of a year and indeed his way of coping with difficult times is to seek out nature as a way of restoring inner peace and balance. Join him and his close knit family on their explorations of the Irish countryside during which he records thrilling encounters with raptors (his favourites); barn owls; swooping swallows, swifts and house martens; singing blackbirds and belligerent robins; swans; frogs; Irish hares; bats; insects of all kinds; wild flowers and fungi. This is a remarkable book penned with passion and purity of heart and is sure to become a classic.
Diary Of A Young Naturalist (hardback edition) at £16 is available to buy at Ullapool Bookshop.
Telephone 01854 612918 or email ullapoolbookshop@btconnect.com to buy by post.
