While the print here is small, and the price rather high for all that color printing, this graphic non-fiction would be a great gift for someone you know (12 and up) that loves nature, and is fascinated by Biology, Entomology, Conservation, Sociobiology, or Natural Science.  This book is poised to stimulate a new generation to make discoveries about the natural world around us, but also pleases armchair explorers and adventurers such as myself. We need good ecology in order to survive!

This memoir follows Pulitzer Prize winning author and scientist Edward O. Wilson through childhood and then throughout his interesting career. Wilson was a geeky kid that collected ants and snakes, and ended up a professor at Harvard, traveling the world having exciting adventures all as part of his work. He was a good observer as most scientists are, and was a proponent of bio-diversity because he was concerned about the extinction of species.

The science Wilson did is made accessible to laymen like me (or your young friends) through this readably approachable, graphic memoir. Make no mistake, there is a lot of content here, and at 240 pages, it is not light or skimpy at all. It is involved and will take you a while to read, but the pictures handily supplement the text. You will understand things you didn’t before, and you’ll be glad you read it. I think it would be very inspiring to a young teenager that loves the outdoors to realize they can make a compelling career out of that. It would be wonderful in classrooms or for homeschooling too.

I enjoyed this (advance reader’s edition) a ton more than I thought I might, and now I want others to read it too! Hot off the press, it has only been out for a month. I give it five stars. I hope you give Naturalist: A Graphic Adaptation as a gift both to yourself and the naturalists around you.