Customer Reviews

Wild Season

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book many years ago and have read it every Spring since. It never gets stagnant. It moves along with a flow that could be compared to Nature. I recommend that anyone with the least bit of interest in nature and wildlife, should read this book.It will remain in your memories for a long time to come.

I had to read this book as a school assignment (I'm in 7thgrade), and enjoyed it immensely! Mr. Eckert presented the nature ina clear, understandable way without twisting the facts. The story flows well from one animal to the next. Wild Season is definitely one of the best books I've read. I'd recommend it to anyone!

Though written to more of a junior high reading level, this book has been a favorite of mine for many years. It chronicles the events surrounding a pond in the midwest from the early spring through the fall. It is more of a rambling journey up and down the food chain more than a scientific text. The book can make you realize just how important every part of nature can be in "the big picture". I highly recommend it to all readers interested in nature.

If I had a list of my top ten favorite reads, something I find impossible to create, as I like so many different books, I would probably put this one right at the top of that list. I first read this one when it was first published around 1967 or 1968. I, like another reviewer, have read this one each spring since that first read. It has become sort of a reading tradition for me. It never seems to get old.

The entire work covers the thirty one days of May. It consists of some of the best nature writing I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The author takes a very small geographical area, centered in the woods, around a pond and stream, and examines just what happens during this brief but explosive time of year. Eckert goes from animal to animal, insect to insect, plant to plant, critter to critter and gives us a wonderful story of the life cycle of these creatures and plants during these thirty one days. His writing is quite blunt and to the point. This is not a Disney Bambi book! Nature is revealed in all of its fascinating glory which includes birth, life and very sudden death. The author does a wonderful job of showing us how the death of one creature, gives live to another and on how all life is so closely interwoven. He examines the habits and habitat of each of his subjects and explains how one cannot survive without the other. There are no anthropomorphisms here, and rabbit is a rabbit and a blot fly is a blot fly. Yet, you find yourself pulling for the survival of this creature or that, even a wayward seed of wheat that is sprouting in the forest via bird droppings being deposited there.

The book takes us on a day by day journey through surroundings that are all around us but few of us actually take the time to see. It becomes very apparent and vary obvious that there are entire micro-worlds around us, so much is happening, so much living and so much dying...all for a purpose though. The author's writing style is almost flawless. This is one of those rare works that a rather young girl or boy can read and thoroughly enjoy and at the same time can be just as enjoyable to geezers like myself!

Now I have always been fascinated by the outdoors and nature, even as a very, very small child. This book though, started me on a life long hobby. As an example; we have lived in our present location in the Missouri Ozarks for almost twenty five years. We live in the woods. My wife and I have left over two acres of our property as it was and is. We do not mow, or disturb it in any way. It is wooded, full of brush, has a small water source and can best be described as a rain forest. I have spent all these years since we began living here, studying this small patch of "wilderness." This has not been a casual study, to be quite frank, I get pretty intense about it, observing, writing, drawing, painting, photographing and watching. The neat thing about this is that after all these years; I still keep finding and observing new species and events. Love it!

It you have the slightest interest in the world around us, the outdoors, and the life we share this planet with, then this is one of the most enjoyable books you will ever read. Recommend it highly.

Don Blankenship

I read this book as a youngster, and have reread it several times since. I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to explore a world that most don't take the time to notice. The author is most descriptive in explaining the how and why of all that happens in a very interesting ecosystem.

If you know a kid that says that he or she does not like to read much, buy them a copy of this book.

I own everything Eckert has written, I believe, and have been a fan for most of my life. His efforts to pass on the stories of Tecumseh, Simon Kenton, the Shawnee people and the Ohio River Valley certainly gained my admiration. Wild Season is one-of-a-kind and if you place an order I recommend that you buy 3 because once you loan it out it is hard to get back. I have probably purchased 30 copies in my lifetime, but currently have none on my shelves. One friend recently told me that it went through his entire household in the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, from the youngest in 5th grade through the 4 siblings, his wife and -sorry- "my neighbor has it but I will get it back to you soon." For adults, it can be completed in an evening. I try to re-read it in the spring after purchasing a fishing license, and then again around Labor Day after purchasing my license to hunt.

It is not a difficult scientific tome, nor would Disney consider it in a re-telling of their circle of life, although between the spring and the frost it is likely that all of the wild creatures are singing one song or another. This book allows the reader to realize first-hand the point of view of many of God's creatures, one after another, as the sun rises on high and they experience their life's routines. As the writer conveys up front, it is what it is: beautiful, tragic, essential....

The beauty is in the description of each animal in tune with the environment; the tragedy in that one living creature is but a meal to another (poor rabbits - making every list); and the essential part really needs little explaining since the lower order animals have yet to form groups that try to disallow the eating of meat in favor of legumes.

If you have read this far I offer a simple version: In this book you become one animal until it becomes lunch for another, then you become that animal. I especially enjoyed the Bass, the Bull Snake and the Owl. The Dog makes an appearance as well, as does the most dangerous animal of them all, one that may kill without an allowable or acceptable reason.

The thing that I am left to wonder about is that this idea has not been widely copied. I can envision an entire series -the desert, The Red River of Eastern Texas, the coral reef, Eastern Woodlands, etc.

In November of this year, I stood high in a tree stand with the string of my bow pulled tight. As I watched, a large doe wondered into the area sniffing at the air for danger. My arrow followed true. She walked a few steps and fell. I climbed down from that tree and walked toward her. Pausing for a minute to give thanks, I'll admit that this book entered my mind. As I bent down to complete my business, I remember hearing Jeff Buckley singing somewhere in my mind:

Well I heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Halleluja.

I am still looking for what that means although I suspect it is an inner question about my place in the circle, about David and Uriah, and about the sometimes deep relationship between love and pain.

As another reviewer did, I first read this book when it was published in 1967. I went on, over the years, to read almost all of Mr Eckert's Winning of America series, but among all his titles, this is the one I keep coming back to.

Not just a book to read every year, it's also a book to read with your children when they're old enough, and then to read again with your grandchildren. It's a book about a world that hasn't changed in literally millions of years. Rather than drawing our attention to a small part of the universe, it reminds us of how small OUR place is in the universe.

The writing is just right. The number of details Mr Eckert slips in is spot on - any more, it would be a text book. Any less, it would be Bambi again.

Don't know when this title went out of print, but any who can should scarf up used copies while they're still out there.