Animal Friendships (what other creatures can teach us)
Nature’s Fascinating Friendships is a wonderful book to educate children on how the animal kingdom works together, to help each other out. Most animal abuse worldwide simply occurs through a lack of empathy, because children have never been taught of the wonders of the natural world. So start them young with this book.
Each page is beautifully illustrated and packed full of facts. The book also has a second benefit of helping children to overcome differences with each other, a skill that is also good as adults.
Go on an amazing journey to discover how animals and plants (and even microscopic organisms) develop fascinating friendships, to help each other survive and thrive. Did you know that:
Pom pom crabs wear sea anemones as boxing gloves, to fight off enemies?
Bats use pitcher plants, as sleeping bags?
From ravens and wolves to trees and fungi, learn how unlikely alliances and friendships are formed in the natural world, and learn of the funny, incredible and sometimes weird and disgusting reasons, why these partnerships work!
Ever wondered why birds travel in flocks or wolves hunt in packs? Animals that live in groups are more likely to survive. Friendships can mean better chances of finding food and staying safe from predators.
Animals form deep friendships that go beyond survival. Elephants are known to exhibit grief at the loss of a friend. Dolphins call out to each other by name, and even rescue their pals when in distress.
The Bison and the Butterfly is a touching ecosystem story about a sad and lonely bison who is big and hairy (and sometimes a bit clumsy) and can’t imagine why anyone would want to be her friend. But wise woodpecker knows that everybody likes different things. As Bison eats her breakfast and has her bath, she meets different creatures who love her exactly as she is.
This friendship story is coupled with an inspiring message on how different animals work within an ecosystem in harmony, to benefit one another. A light-hearted tale that gently explains the science behind rewilding, and that we are all worthy of friendship.
Poems on Nature’s Remarkable Partners
Nature’s Remarkable Partners is a fun book for young readers and two voices, peeking into mutually beneficially partnerships in nature – from butterflies and milkweed, to clownfish and anemones.
Children will enjoy poems that teach about the egg-laying carrion beetle and its hitchhiking mite passengers, and the little goby fish (that guards the pistol shrimp from predators, in exchange for a safe haven).
Brief science notes accompany each featured partnership, with back matter offering more opportunities for study.
To Have or to Hold (nature’s hidden relationships)
To Have or to Hold is a thrilling exploration of nature’s relationships, nominated for the Wainwright Prize. Learn about eight symbiotic relationships, trying to survive climate and biodiversity crises, to regulate ecosystems and strengthen resilience.
What can nature teach us, about living together? These relationships don’t happen by accident, there are dynamics involves. Species form (and sever) relationships everywhere, from temperate rainforests to the open ocean, and from quiet tidal pools to chalk grasslands.
In this book, Sophie travels (using low-carbon methods) around the British Isles to relish the inter-connectedness between species, and sharing some of their tales. A call to avoid exploiting nature’s resources, instead to love and cherish what remains, to shape a more restorative life alongside nature.
This miraculous book blindsided me. I raced through its pages as though reading a beautifully written thriller, while learning so much about things I never knew existed. Joanna Lumley
From mint-sauce worms (they are bright green due to algae!) to tree lungwort (toxic to pets), this is a glorious guide to coupling in the animal, plant and fungal kingdoms. Guy Shrubsole
She is one of the best nature writers of our time, her ability to make readers giggle and feel empowered and motivated to do something, is like no other. This is an absolute masterpiece. Megan McCubbin
Sophie Pavelle is a US-born science communicator who now lives here. She has done a lot of good work for wildlife (especially beavers) and her writing appears in many newspapers and magazines.
Her first book Forget Me Not was praised for encouraging action against biodiversity loss, due to climate change.
