Other editions of book The Sense of Wonder: A Celebration of Nature for Parents and Children

This book was recommended to me by a friend some years ago. She told me that she had read this book in her youth and it had changed her life. At the time, the book was still out of print, but I managed to find a well-read copy through inter-library loan. After reading it, I can well understand how this little book can transform a person's way of thinking. In a very personal and lyrical remembrance, Rachel Carson shares her vision of the natural world and the wonder it inspires. "A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood," Rachel Carson writes. And this book, filled with its sage and poetic insight, and illustrated with luscious photographs of the natural world is a first step toward rediscovering that amazing sense of wonder within. I particularly love her thoughts about one starry summer night when she muses, "if this (the starry sky) were a sight that could be seen only once in a century...this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they will never see it." This wisdom is both a gift to the young and the old alike. I only wish I had read it sooner. When I found the book in print again, I promptly bought it, and have read it over and over. It is a treasure that will be enjoyed for years. ( Amazon customer)

In 1987, design group The Etheredges undertook to republish Charles Pratt's 1965 publishing of Rachel Carson's 1956 text, "Help Your Child to Wonder" as a picture book, replete with beautiful photographs that captured that childlike sense of wonder, and which were largely taken near or around Carson's home in Maine (Carson had died in 1964, Pratt died in 1976). Mr. Pratt was himself an accomplished photographer with many of his works featured in NYC's Museum of Contemporary Art and elsewhere. This book was, as described on the cover, a "best-selling environmental classic", and is appropriate for adult and child alike.

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in...If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life."--Rachel Carson First published more than three decades ago, this award-winning classic brings Rachel Carson's unique vision to a new generation of readers. The Sense of Wonder relates Carson's intimate account of adventures with her young nephew, Roger, as they enjoy walks along the rocky coast of Maine and through dense forests and open fields, observing wildlife, strange plants, moonlight, and storm clouds and listening to the living music of insects in the underbrush. It is a refreshing antidote to indifference and a guide to capturing the simple power of discovery that Carson views as essential to life. The Sense of Wonder is a timeless volume that will be passed on from parent to child to grandchild, as treasured as the memory of an early morning walk when the song of a bird was heard as if for the first time.