Nature Book Reader June 2020 - Flipbook - Page 14
A Nature Book Reader
JON BERRY
When not fishing or writing, Jon Berry is a school teacher
Wild Animal Books by Père Castor
I don’t know when these
books were first published
– an uneducated guess
suggests the ‘forties or early
‘fifties – but I saw my first
copy much more recently.
They are French children’s
books, translated by Rose
Fyleman for the British
market, and describe the life
cycles of various animals.
There is the expected
anthropomorphism; the
Kingfishers are called
Martin and Martine, the
hare answers to Frou and
the squirrel is known to his
friends as Mischief – but
aside from that the author,
known only on the cover
as Lida, offers faithful and
unsentimental descriptions
of the lives and habits of each
creature. If Walt Disney did
much to damage children’s’
grasp of nature in the postwar world – and I will argue
14
to my last breath that he did
– then these books would
have gone some way towards
redressing the balance by
offering a natural history
that was both palatable and
accurate. In Pere Castor’s
forest, the deer don’t have
American accents or Liz
Taylor’s eyelashes, and are
all the better for it...
Further Reading
Queer Fish
by E.G. Boulenger
Observer’s Book
of Birds
