Diary of a Young Naturalist

Winner of the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 

Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

A Guardian Book of the Year, a Hay Festival Book of the Year, and is shortlisted as a Waterstones Book of the Year

"Dara's is an extraordinary voice and vision: brave, poetic, ethical, lyrical, strong enough to have made him heard and admired from a young age."
-Robert Macfarlane 

"McAnulty is fiercely attuned to his own moods, and at a time when we're increasingly aware of the health benefits of the outdoors, his ability to medicate with nature strikes a powerful chord."
-The Guardian 

Evocative, raw, and beautifully written, Diary of a Young Naturalist vividly explores the natural world from the perspective of an autistic teenager juggling homework, friendship, and campaigning for the environment. 

Diary of a Young Naturalist chronicles the turning of fifteen-year-old Dara McAnulty's world. From spring and through a year in his backyard in Northern Ireland, McAnulty spent the seasons writing. These vivid, evocative, and moving diary entries about his connection to wildlife and the way he sees the world are raw in their telling. Above all, Diary of a Young Naturalist portrays McAnulty's intense connection to the natural world.

"I was diagnosed with Asperger's/autism aged five... By age seven I knew I was very different, I had got used to the isolation, my inability to break through into the world of talking about football or Minecraft was not tolerated. Then came the bullying. Nature became so much more than an escape; it became a life-support system."

"A few hours reading this intimate, sensitive, deeply felt memoir had the same [medicinal] effect on me, lifting my spirits and giving me a great deal of hope for the future, simply that young people like Dara McAnulty are alive and writing in the world."
-The Guardian

"McAnulty is fiercely attuned to his own moods, and at a time when we're increasingly aware of the health benefits of the outdoors, his ability to medicate with nature strikes a powerful chord"
-The Guardian

"Dara's is an extraordinary voice and vision: brave, poetic, ethical, lyrical, strong enough to have made him heard and admired from a young age."
-Robert Macfarlane

"This book is very pertinent. It's a diary but essentially timeless. It's about enduring, it's about passion, beauty and connection. It's really, really special."
-Chris Packham

"A beautifully written, profoundly important classic of nature writing that will ignite a passion for the wild in every reader. A stunning achievement. I adored it."
-Lauren St John

"McAnulty's writing glows with his deep sympathy for the natural world."
-Tim Flannery

"Like reading William Blake or Ted Hughes, it really is a strange and magical experience...surely one of the most talked about nature books, or any books, this year."
-The Daily Mail

Dara McAnulty is a naturalist, conservationist, and activist. He's received many awards for his conservation work, and he's written and presented numerous natural history programs for BBC radio and television. McAnulty is the youngest ever recipient of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds medal for conservation, and he lives with his family and Rosie the rescue-greyhound at the foot of the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland. Diary of a Young Naturalist is his first book.