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STORYLINES NOTABLE NON-FICTION BOOK 2020
Review
The Spinoff ~ What Nature Heroes does is take our conservation stories – some you’ll have heard before, some you won’t – and organises them, compellingly, around people. So you have bird-mad Pérrine Moncrieff, who was absolutely devoted to campaigning to protect habitats, the feather in her cap (oh my god, sorry) the creation of Abel Tasman National Park. You have Lance Richdale, who was obsessed with albatross and hoiho. In 1938 he camped out near a clutch of albatross eggs, protecting them until the one surviving chick fledged (“This is how the royal albatross colony at Taiaroa Head began”). Or meet marine scientist Jordan Aria Housiaux, whose work tagging and tracking sevengill sharks will help us ensure their survival.
There are 15 heroes and each is presented as a person, not just a list of achievements (Moncrieff, for example, was also the first commissioner of the Girl Guides in Nelson. She resigned after losing a battle to bend the uniform rules as she wanted girls to not have to wear black stockings on tramps. How very dare she). Candler subtly drops in detail about how they started out as nature-obsessed kids (read: you can do it, too).
Throughout, kids’ questions are anticipated and answered, and sad stories and marvelous ones are given the same clear-and-simple treatment. Here: “When there are only a few birds left, individuals can be given names.” Or: “In the aquarium, Betty Batham saw an octopus lay eggs on the glass of the tank. Over the next 11 weeks until they hatched, she observed how the mother octopus guarded her eggs and kept the water flowing around them to keep the eggs clean and aerated.”
Linked to each person’s story are two or three easy, cheap, seemingly non-crazy-making activities you might legitimately want to do with your kid these holidays. Activities that will either make an actual difference, or help your kid make the most of what we’ve got left. Or both.
About the Kiwi author
Find out more about Kiwi author Gillian Candler on her author profile.
