Book Nook - Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars

 Outdoorsman, conservationist, hunter, host of the television series and podcast MeatEater, and New York Times bestselling author Steven Rinella shares his unique insight into the natural world in his first children’s book, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars (Random House, June 13, 2023) – a gloves-off, muddy boots approach to outdoor adventures for kids ages eight and up. Rinella dedicates the book to “all you kids who love nature” and reminds them that “tomorrow, it will be your job to protect it.”  

A must-have guide for budding naturalists, scientists, gardeners, anglers, foragers, and hunters, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars helps get kids off screens and out into nature, imparting lifelong knowledge and skills along the way with Rinella’s trademark humor, wisdom, and storytelling. 

In an era of helicopter parenting and so-called bubble-wrapped children, there is a better way.  Elements of risk, discovery, adventure – even danger – have developed character, confidence, independence, and grit for generations, and Rinella’s new book is a tour de force for kids and parents alike to embrace the outdoors in the ultimate form of “adventure play.”  

 

In the book readers will learn:

• Key skills on outdoor navigation and exploration including how to use the night sky or make your own compass to find your way home, how to build shelters out of natural materials, and how to start a fire that will heat and light your campsite;
• Why you should have an exploration kit for any of your outdoor adventures and what items should be included to best equip children for outdoor fun;
• How to scour the landscape safely for natural treasure by collecting and foraging everything from seashells, to edible berries, to the skeletons of wild creatures;
• The history of some of America’s first conservationists, naturalists, and adventurers including President Theodore Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Sacagawea, John Wesley Powell, Daniel Boone, and George Washington Carver;
• How to successfully try your hand at the ancestral practices of hunting and fishing – and how mastering these skills will allow you to become one with the wild;
• How to safely prepare and cook items that you forage, hunt, or fish, including panfish, squirrels, crayfish, mushrooms, and huckleberries;
• Why you don’t need to travel far from home to get outside and have adventures—and how to encourage wildlife to thrive in your backyard;
• How to engage with the natural world by growing a vegetable garden—a vivid example of your ability to positively affect your personal ecosystem. 

Complete with illustrations and filled with advice, insights, and activities to inspire wonder and excitement about the natural world, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars is a curious kid’s treasure trove of outdoor projects, skills, and adventures.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Steven Rinella is the host of the television show MeatEater and The MeatEater Podcast. He is the author of Outdoor Kids in An Inside World: Getting Your Family Out of the House and Radically Engaged with Nature; The MeatEater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival; The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook; two volumes of The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game; Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter; American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon; and The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine. He is the recipient of the Conservation Achievement Award from The Theodore Roosevelt Conserv