Can I get opinions on the book "Secrets of the Woods?"

[Tami]

did your child like it? Did you find it valuable? This is an Ambleside Year 6 book.

Positives and negatives all welcomed.

[Eliana]

I have very mixed feeling about this book. I like the detailed, personal descriptions of the natural world - parts of it are very engaging - but I am bothered by the racial stereotyping and there is something in the overall tone which jarred for me. My greatest discomfort is with the depiction of the joy of hunting as sport - that is not a lens through which I want to introduce my children to nature. ymmv :)

You can read it online at Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/sctwd10.txt) to get your own sense - the hunting stuff is in later part, as I recall.

[Tami]

this does not sound like a book I want to just hand to dd to read. Yikes.

[Lenora in MD]

Do you mean School of the Woods by Long? That is for year six. My daughter tried it, but just did not like it. I made her read several chapters to see if she could get into it, but it just did not really interest her. We have so many other great nature study books that we read, I decided to let her drop it.

[Tami]

Do you mean School of the Woods by Long? That is for year six. My daughter tried it, but just did not like it. I made her read several chapters to see if she could get into it, but it just did not really interest her. We have so many other great nature study books that we read, I decided to let her drop it.


Would you mind sharing what you substituted?