Dual purpose memoir

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, naturalists, natural history, autism, memoirs

I scour the Science shelves at libraries and bookstores. Naturally, once I saw Diary of a Young Naturalist, by Dara McAnulty, I anticipated a good read. I was not disappointed.

The author has been a naturalist as long as he's been able to get out and into nature. The book is taken from his diary starting in Spring 2018, through Winter 2019, just before his 15th birthday. He writes to re-process a day and its experiences. It is a triumph for him to share all that with us.

This is a memoir with two tracks, as his diary has two tracks. He shows us nature as he sees it, and he shows himself to us, as he experiences himself and the world around. This takes some doing because he is autistic, at least according to the modern definition (It wasn't that long ago that "high-functioning" autistic persons were described as having Asperger's Syndrome, but that term has been swallowed up into "the spectrum", which covers a huge range from classical autism—which depicts those who cannot communicate nor even recognize the difference between people and furniture that inexplicably moves about—, to the highest-functioning end of Asperger's, which grades into the hyper-focus of ADHD).

Both Dara and his brother Lorcan are "on the spectrum," though they experience it differently and behave differently. I'm not certain that his sister Bláthnaid is also autistic, but once or twice he writes of her as though she might be so. Whatever their status, all three children are very, very lucky in having a mother who knows how to nurture them and provides a safe haven for them, and a father who is equally accepting and nurturing. This family picture is from Irish News. Dara is wearing blue.

Dara, in particular, is easily overwhelmed by business/busyness in the human world. It is time-consuming and difficult for him to recover from attending a public function or giving a speech, something he is called on to do more and more often, particularly as his blog has gained popularity and he's become better known among naturalists and environmentalists. Just attending school takes its toll, all the more when he is bullied, as autistic youngsters frequently are. However, the school in their new neighborhood is quite different, he's bullied far less often, and he writes of gathering a number of students to form a club for environmental activism.

In spite of all the troubles he's had, Dara writes with open-hearted charm. There's a freshness akin to what I've enjoyed during conversations with young friends "on the spectrum." Describing his family's last leave-taking of Rathlin Island, which he describes as shaped like a mermaid's tail—they were soon to move farther away from the northern coast—, he says, "There's a Rathlin space inside me, mermaid-shaped, and it needs to be filled again." In this picture, perhaps you can almost see the mermaid, off the picture to the upper right, taking her leave. (Picture from Wikimedia).

Later on, writing of a walk in late September: "The beach is invigorating today. I haven't stretched my legs properly in a few days, and the comfort of walking unloads a little more weight. With every passing day, a little more joy sneaks in – is there a peak, a maximum amount of joy that we're allowed to feel?"

I see I have dwelt mostly on autism. The book is filled with bits of knowledge about birds and other animals. I don't know if I can easily recognize more than a handful of bird species. Dara seems to know dozens, perhaps hundreds, by sight, sound, or even from a single fallen feather. He's much more than a bird watcher, however. He writes of insects, particularly those that inhabit streams and ponds, toads and frogs, and numerous other creatures whose habitats we have, quite frankly, invaded and often ruined.

He has a visceral reaction to things. He feels with his whole body. This can cause surprise at times: he writes of finding a jay feather and handing it to a girl standing nearby. Her mother snatched it away, saying, "Dirty!", at which point Dara screamed. He screamed loud and long, and it took much of his mother's care to calm him down. This was probably when he was younger than ten. He also writes of a later incident: seeing a boy pick up a chestnut, followed by a similar reaction from that boy's mother. But Dara held back and waited. When the mother was distracted, he found a bigger chestnut, sidled up to the boy, told him a bit about chestnut trees, and let the boy whisk the nut into his pocket before the mother could see. That's one-on-one activism, and I hope the youngster keeps his love of nature.

At about 200 pages, the book is just right. Not every day is detailed, perhaps a quarter of them or less. What we do have produces a comforting feeling that at least some young people are "getting it", that they realize we cannot continue to devour the earth, heedless of those with whom we share it.