Earth Day, April 22, 2025
Mindful Nature: Connecting With Our Great Green World
Paige Towler, Autho
Magination Press, Nonfiction, Feb. 4, 2025
Suitable for ages: 5-9
Themes: Nature, Mindfulness, Health benefits, Reducing stress
Mindful Nature: Connecting With Our Great Green World
Paige Towler, Autho
Magination Press, Nonfiction, Feb. 4, 2025
Suitable for ages: 5-9
Themes: Nature, Mindfulness, Health benefits, Reducing stress
Opening: “Rise and shine, harvest mouse. Your cozy blossom bed is speckled with fresh dew.”
Book Jacket Synopsis:
Dive into a beautiful, calming blend of mindful moments and stunning nature photography, and discover an absorbing and meditative experience for all ages. Look, touch, smell, imagine, and wonder as you connect to our great green world in all its splendor.
This book was made possible through a publishing partnership between the Magination Press and the National Wildlife Federation to show the benefits of nature for improving mental health, reducing stress, boosting self-esteem, and encouraginging empowerment for people, communities, and the planet.
My thoughts:
Paige Towler’s piccture book is breathtakiing and soothing. Make sure you take a close look at the cover, and discover who is peeking out of the flower. Such a unique book for children and adults. Towler’s prose is poetic and a celebration of life in nature. I especially like how she nudges children to be mindful of being fully present moment as they explore each new page.
The book is interactive. Towler provides prompts for youngsters to engage their senses as they imagine what daily life must be like for a mouse, an owl, a bear, a frog, birds, deer elephants, and lightning bugs. They are encouraged to smell the flowers, spread their wings, spread their fingers and toes, growl, breath in and out, and listen to the silence.
“Swish. Stretch your arms out wide like an owl in flight.
Bring yout wings up, up, up
and gently back down.
Breathe in and out.
Hoot softely as you imagine gliding through the chilled air.”
Bring yout wings up, up, up
and gently back down.
Breathe in and out.
Hoot softely as you imagine gliding through the chilled air.”
There is a companion book Take a Hike! for kids 8-12 years of age, which I reviewed on April 21. I highly recommend both books as they are great assets to home and school libraries.
Resources: Make sure you check the two-page Reader’s Note by Julia Martin Surch, PhD in the backmatter. She gives parents and teachers suggestions on how to use this dynamic book and how to practice the activities that Towler suggests. She also urges parents to take their children on a mindful nature walk, chasw ligthning bugs, study insects, collect leaves, flowers and other items they may find. Ask questions like “If this tree could speak, what might it say?”
Paige Towler lives in Washington, DC. Her writing and poetry have appeared in many anthologies, and she has written books for National Geographic, Britannica Books, Scholastic, Union Square & Co., and more.
*Review copy provided by Magination Press in return for a review.