Book Review: “Run Wild” by David Covell

Run Wild, by David Covell Rating: 🌳🌳🌳🌳/5 Genres: Children’s Literature, Picture Book, Nature Writing, Poetry Summary: A beautiful read-along children’s book celebrating the joys of exploring the great outdoors!

Review:

David Covell’s children’s book Run Wild encourages children to step away from electronics and explore the great outdoors. The illustrations are brightly colored, engaging, and beautiful to look at, and we would even consider a couple of them frameable. Using a variety of media, but primarily watercolor, Covell displays enticing images of deep woods, echoey caves, wide oceans, and rainy days. Each page is filled with natural elements easily identified by young readers: there are children running with rabbits, discovering earthworms, and chatting with clams. Most importantly, paired with these illustrations are fun rhymes and onomatopoeia words. “Squish. Squirm. Fiddlehead. Fern. Meet a beetle. Talk to worms.” Covell will delight young readers as he encourages them to get dirty (“Squeaky clean? Who cares about that?”) and to howl at the moon (“Ah-woooooooooo!”). The rhyme scheme is sometimes irregular, making it easy to lose the rhythm as you stop to look at pictures with young readers, but overall the effect is a delightful romp through nature. If you’re looking for a book to inspire the next generation of land stewards, this is it. We highly recommend this book as a beautiful and engaging introduction to the natural world, and it’s the perfect precursor to some fun outdoor playtime! Want to stay up-to-date with all of our Native News? Sign up for our email newsletter!