Audiobook · read by volunteers
Wild Life in Woods and Fields
Arabella B. Buckley (1840–1929)
Read by Laura Caldwell · 13 chapters · 37 min
About the book
Spiders on the common, a woodpecker’s nest, spring flowers, a family of squirrels: Arabella Buckley, author of The Fairy-Land of Science, invites young readers to look closely at the small wonders of the countryside. Her short chapters on animals, birds and insects encourage children to become naturalists, to sit quietly, watch and listen. The writing is simple, clear and full of enthusiasm, and it explains how creatures live without losing any of their charm. Each part is only a few minutes long. Thirteen short parts, read by one LibriVox volunteer, last just over half an hour, perfect for a walk, a bedtime or a rainy afternoon. A delightful way to open a child’s eyes to the life around them, and a pleasure for adults who remember what that kind of wonder felt like.
Introduction
Arabella Burton Buckley, who lived from 1840 to 1929, was an English writer on natural history and science for young readers. She worked for a time as secretary to the geologist Sir Charles Lyell, and she later became known for popular books that explained scientific ideas in simple terms, the best known being The Fairy-Land of Science (1879).
Wild Life in Woods and Fields, published in 1901, is a collection of nature stories and sketches that aims to encourage children to become little naturalists and to explore the countryside. In the manner of her other books, she combines accurate observation with a warm and engaging style. The chapters include an introduction and shorter pieces such as the one on spiders on the common and another on the woodpecker’s nest, and they describe how animals live, build and care for their young.
It is classed as science, and it belongs to a long tradition of nature writing for children in which careful looking is treated as a source of pleasure and a lesson in patience. Some of the details and a few of the generalisations about animal behaviour reflect the knowledge of the time, and modern research has refined many of them. Even so, the spirit of curiosity is as fresh as ever.
The recording has thirteen parts, read throughout by a single LibriVox volunteer, and lasts under forty minutes. Today it is worth hearing as a short, gentle introduction to natural history, and as an invitation to go outdoors and look at the creatures that share our fields and woods.
Public domain
Arabella B. Buckley died in 1929: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text