58 books like Nature Is a Sculptor

If you haven’t already shared this classic with a child, you must!

Everybody Needs a Rock sets out to explain the ten rules of finding a special, just-right rock. Deeply in tune with kids’ relationships to the stones they collect, this delightful picture book insists that you must “look a rock right in the eye” and that a rock “has to feel easy in your hand.”

This book’s gentle humor makes me grin every time, and its overarching message, that a rock is a treasure more compelling than any toy, empowers children to connect with nature and revel in their own imaginations. 

Do stones sit still or do they constantly travel and transform? Both are true!

This lyrical work of fiction explores the stillness and permanency of a single stone. As the world around the stone whirls with activity, the stone remains in place. Though it may seem to change, appearing purple in the moonlight, for example, and though it is perceived and used in a wide range of ways by a wide variety of creatures, it doesn’t budge.

This soothing story invites children to think about the passage of time and to contemplate all a stone experiences as it sits in stillness.

I’m obsessed with time—how to define it, the way it reshapes all things, the sheer immensity of it. Rocks are our only link to Earth’s deep past, and we rely on the stories rocks tell to understand our planet’s history.

This nonfiction picture book offers a detailed introduction to the geology and ecology of one of Earth’s great natural wonders, showcasing the Grand Canyon’s distinct ecological communities and explaining its formation.

As a parent and child hike the canyon, we explore it alongside them, and through momentary leaps back in time, we see how the landscape and its inhabitants have changed over the course of more than 1 billion years.

When I take the time to really look at a rock and contemplate the journey that brought it to me, I am humbled. I’m reminded that I’m a small part of something bigger, an experience shared by the characters in this gorgeous picture book about rocks, intergenerational relationships, and Indigenous knowledge.

In Where Wonder Grows, Grandma leads her granddaughters to a special garden, and together they explore a collection of rocks. Grandma encourages the girls to look closely at each rock and to think about how it formed and all it has been through. She helps the girls see that rocks are “alive with wisdom” and that nature is full of wonder. 

As one of the 8,000 people who applied (and wasn’t selected) as an astronaut in 1978, I wondered what made the six women chosen, including Dr. Seddon, stand out.

How about the stamina and skill to handle 24-hour shifts saving gunshot victims in the emergency room? How about pushing her body to the limit to hold her breath and swim two lengths underwater? And then there is the sheer determination that allowed her to endure almost drowning when the spacesuit she had to wear was sized for a man.

She not only was one of the first women astronauts, but she also married an astronaut and raised a happy family during the high-pressure Shuttle era. In my opinion, Rhea Seddon’s story should be required reading for all Americans!

Every geology book collection should include this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic. McPhee travels with four different U.S. geologists, visiting their outcrops and laboratories while tracing the evolution of geologic thought and discoveries. McPhee has the eye of a scientist, the soul of a poet, and the pen (keyboard?) of a master author. The result is fluid and beautiful writing about science and those who practice it. 

Lyell’s Principles, though published almost 190 years ago, is a masterful argument for the veracity of deep time. Drawing on his skills as a lawyer as much as his scientific perceptions, Lyell lays out the case for the power of gradual processes operating over vast expanses of time to change the face of our planet. His lucid, compelling case that “the present is key to the past” greatly influenced many subsequent discoveries, including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. And, happily, various editions are freely available in facsimile on the web.

Meldahl’s book describes more than 100 million years of North America’s history. For laymen, it is the best geologic field guide to understanding the tectonic forces and subsequent erosion which formed the western United States. The photos, maps, and illustrations depict how the rivers, mountains, and plains are where they are and why. Anyone who drives from California to the Great Plains, or in reverse, should carry this book in your car. Even though millions of people love history, few understand earth’s history, which stares in the face of all of us and, for those who are curious, reveals “the hidden poetry of our mutable earth” (Richard Fortey).

My sole non-fiction choice. I love the scope of this book: the early engineers and industrialists who were involved, the palaeogeological conditions that made coal deposits possible, the legacy of burning carbon, and, chapter by chapter, a description of most of the coalfields of Britain and the landscapes that resulted. Add poems and songs and paintings and you have a wonderful book. My sole gripe: the illustrations are too tiny. The breadth of content deserves something better.

Fortey is a literary, opinionated, and very engaging science writer.

One of the foundational books for my book was a geological walk across the Great Britain called The Hidden Landscape which was a revelation when I first read it (I can’t believe it’s now 30 years old!).

I’m a keen walker and know many of the landscapes he described in the book – learning about the rocks far beneath my feet, the forces that had formed them and the impact they had on the history of each region really transformed my relationship to the landscape.

For anyone looking for a global perspective, his more recent book Earth: An Intimate History is also an excellent and illuminating read.