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RE: Reading material for a 13 year old?
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by BobH on August 8, 2009
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There should be some Kaufield classics like "Snakes and Snake hunting" and "The Keeper and the Kept" at the library. There is a pretty good book out by Bruce Means....something like "Stalking the Plumbed Serpent" that I am sure he would enjoy.
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RE: Reading material for a 13 year old?
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by JSargent on August 10, 2009
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"My Side of the Mountain" was one of my favorites growing up....along w/ Kaulfield's books...."Snake hunting the devil's highway" is a great book also....
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RE: Reading material for a 13 year old?
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by asud on August 17, 2009
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I love Brandt Aymar's Treasury of Snake Lore, an anthology that pulls from great writers (Thoreau, Ruskin, Shelley, Lawrence--though not, oddly, his fantastic poem 'Snake') as well as selections from the great world mythologies, fables and more anthropologic-academic treatises like Catherine C. Hopley's. No section is more than 20 pages (and often much less) so easy to pick up and read a bit at a time. Great for a school bus ride.
The Mintons' Venomous Reptiles a real page turner. I would've loved that as a 13 year old.
Drake Stutesman's Snake--part of a series of monographs focussing on one animal (e.g., Fox, Fly, Crocodile, Whale) commissioned by Reaktion Books is a great read, too. A good, very broad view with fantastic, often weird pictures.
Gordon Grice's Red Hourglass (a little bit of metonymy there for the Black Widow) is a series of essays on animals he loves, the rattlesnake chapter being particularly good. Well written stuff, one of which (I think) got picked for the Best American Essays anthology when it was published.
Both biographies of Ionides (Wykes or Margaret Lane) are great. He was (by their accounts) a difficult, ascetic, misanthropic figure, but a romantic one nonetheless, out in the bush encountering some of the world's most formidable serpents.
I'd scan David Quammen's essay collections--any library should have them--as he has a couple on snakes, I just can't remember where. He's informative and fast-paced, adventure-oriented--good for younger readers. (I think he also wrote the intro for a recent edition of John Crompton's Snake, another good primer.)
Peter Brazaitis' You Belong in a Zoo is a fun read, with lurid--in a good way!--sections on an escaped King Cobra in the Bronx Zoo or getting called in by customs to inspect mysterious, hissing packages at the airport.
Lastly--and forgive me if someone's already mentioned this or if it's completely obvious, but the Slowiniski bio (Snake Charmer) is just out in paperback and is a fast, fun read...
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RE: Reading material for a 13 year old?
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by asud on September 14, 2009
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one just came to mind. i can't believe i didn't think of it before, but kate jackson's 'mean and lowly things' is a great read. it might be a bit advanced for a 13 year old (unless they're a big reader), but fine for any 15 year old, i'd imagine. it's her story of moving through the dense congo rainforest basin, looking for all sorts of things--not just snakes, but frogs, caecilians, etc. she portrays field herpetology as often slow and frustrating and icky and uncomfortable--a good corrective to all those austin stevens style tv shows. this only makes her 'finds' all the more exciting. (her being chest deep in a river trying to untangle an enraged 6' cobra from a fisherman's net is a real highlight.)
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RE: Reading material for a 13 year old?
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by CSdeadboy2009 on September 20, 2009
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Todd, He is beyond fiction now and into a full blown addiction now. He has Peterson's field guides for East and West, and is working on a library for reference of his own. I found the Keeping venomus 101 for him as well as others.
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RE: Reading material for a 13 year old?
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by toddg on September 21, 2009
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As long is he's just collecting books, I wouldn't worry. If he starts collecting cobras, then you might want to start thinking about "interventions" and "rehabs".
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RE: Reading material for a 13 year old?
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by MikeB on September 22, 2009
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I was about that age when I found a copy of one of Raymond L. Ditmars' books. He is of course the first top really popularize herpetology, and none of his books are in print today, but I suspect some might be found on ebay or some old book location service. The bets part was his account of how he got hooked on snakes at about that same age and went to work in the Museum of Natural History and later on to the NY zoo.
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