By Editors of Storey Publishing
A small tough book with a real magnifying glass bolted to it, made to be taken outside and filled in.
It's built for a pocket. Chunky board pages, a loop with a working magnifying glass on it, three sheets of sticker patches, and page after page of things to go and find — a worm, a bird, a spider's web, lichen on a wall, a cloud shaped like something. Some pages are a field guide and tell your child what they're looking at. Most pages are a question with a blank next to it: draw what you found, stick the sticker on, write down where you were. There's a trail map to make and a log to keep. It doesn't work at the kitchen table. It only works outside, which is the whole design.
It gives a walk a point. That's the thing it fixes — the child who trails behind asking how much further has a magnifier and a list and suddenly they're the one setting the pace. The reading load is almost nothing, so a five-year-old who can barely read is doing exactly the same activity as a nine-year-old, and the writing-in is short enough that it never turns into homework. The magnifier being attached rather than loose is a small thing that matters a lot, because a loose one is lost by the second walk.