Explore a forest from canopy to soil. Compare deciduous and evergreen trees, find spring flowers and mosses, and discover the fungal threads connecting roots underground.
Can You Read Nature? · Close to Home
Step beneath the branches. The forest is full of stories.
Discover the woods through lyrical storytelling, real forest science, and museum-quality artwork created for curious families.
Ages 5–14+Family nature bookArt by Erin Gutkopf
Read before you go see ten times more!
Hardcover
Hardcover + free conmpanion ebook
$29.95Includes instant-download ebook
- Free ebook included with hardcover
- A nature book for exploring any neighborhood woods
- Original art that makes forest science memorable
- $1 to Children and Nature Network
Ebook
The nature book you can take anywhere
$12.95instant download
- Your perfect woodland companion, see 10x more
- Kinder to the planet, nothing in a landfill
- Trees, fungi, wildlife, and forest science shine on a screen
- $1 to Children and Nature Network
Instant deliveryEbook delivered by email
Free shippingOrders over $40
Secure checkoutPowered by Shopify
Gives back$1 supports nature
Wear the wonder
Carry the forest with you—and wear the wonder.
Pair the hardcover nature book with the matching Walk in the Woods shirt for a gift that keeps curiosity growing long after the final page.
Choose your shirt option before adding both items to your cart.
Look closer
Every forest layer hides another living story.
Read the woods with every sense. Follow deer tracks, hear birds and wind, feel bark and moss, turn over a rotting log, and watch a fallen tree become a nursery for new life.
Meet the artist
Erin Gutkopf
Nature artist and careful observer
“I hope this book makes you want to step outside, listen closely, and find your own favorite quiet spot in nature.”
I’m an artist who feels most at home in the wild edges of things. The quiet paths, tangled roots, and soft, green places where nature is endlessly doing its work. I try to carry this into my paintings.
I love small details: layers of leaves and branches, the roughness of bark, the way light falls through trees and lands on ferns and forest floor.
Through this book, I want to share that kind of noticing with you. The sounds of wind in the trees, the textures under your hands, and the many layers of plant and tree life in a living, breathing forest. My hope is that this book will make you want to step outside, listen closely, and find your own favorite quiet spot in the natural world.
Erin’s illustrations invite families to slow down, use every sense, and notice the quiet beauty waiting between the trees.
About this book
What is inside
Explore deciduous and evergreen trees, canopy and understory layers, spring flowers, moss and fungi, underground root partnerships, deer, squirrels, salamanders, birds and insects, woodland sounds and textures, nurse logs, nature’s calming effects, Leave No Trace, and ten things to find on your next walk.
About the author
Narrated by Neil Rosen, children’s book author and founder of WildStork. Neil writes every book as an invitation to look closer, stay longer, and discover what families miss when they move too fast.
Reading level
Ages 5 to 14. Designed for the whole family, with lyrical storytelling and real science to share together.