Nature Book Reader June 2020 - Flipbook - Page 12
A Nature Book Reader
LAURA BEATTY
Laura Beatty is most commonly found is places of dense vegetation and mud
The Shepherd’s Calendar by John Clare
When I was a child, nature
was called ‘outside’ and
it was where everything
exciting happened – the
river, for a start, harvesting
by a full moon, stubble fires,
bulls. It was about exploring
and swapping knowledge
– where the swallow’s nest
was – in the gypsy caravan,
in the junkyard – where the
sticklebacks were, or the
bullheads, how to unpack
an owl pellet and look at
the needle bones inside.
We collected pen knives
and showed each other the
blades and we built fires
and collapsing shelters. But
it was also a place that was
bigger than our knowledge,
the place of animal secrets
and of magic, of a power
that we didn’t question and
that had us in its grip. So my
first books were books that
understood these two things,
12
the importance of knowledge
and practicality, and this
apprehension of wildness:
My Side of the Mountain by
Jean George, about a boy who
runs away to the Catskill
mountains, tames a hawk
and lives in a hollow tree;
The Little Grey Men by BB;
Bevis, the Story of a Boy by
Richard Jeffries.
Growing up was to move,
without noticing it, away
from the fields and streams
and the world of the animals
into the world of people – to
come indoors for good. Most
of us don’t belong in nature
any more. We just visit it. We
put on special clothes and go
to see it at week ends or in the
holidays, to excercise and to
unwind, and then we come
back inside again. So my
favourite books now reflect
that dislocation. The Spell
of the Sensuous by David
