“Wild in The Backyard” is a must read, must keep for all. The book is well structured and Arefa Tehsin has very cleverly incorporated her story telling techniques into it.

This is not your average encyclopedia about animals but a book with well sectioned divisions explaining about the most common of creatures. What piques your interest in the book are the easy to solve puzzles, a few questions with detailed answers, a cute story, a fun joke, little trivia at the end of each section. With catchy chapter titles like Black Lord of the Skies (The Kite) Dream Catchers (Web spinning spiders) or even Little winged fairies (Butterflies) and brilliant word play, the author has you completely hooked. 

The sections are not very lengthy which would otherwise make it feel like it’s dragging, but packed with fun facts and interesting information. The illustrations are great and very relatable and some of the anecdotes would make you laugh.

Although it makes for easy reading, a lot of in depth research has gone in. As the saying goes ‘never judge a book by its cover’, or assume it’s a drag because it’s non- fiction. The next time someone says “A Murder”, they may well be referring to just a flock of crows.

Animals, birds, insects, nature, beauty, life………You don’t have to travel across continents as sometimes, just sometimes, Wild life is indeed in our backyard.