The WINNER of the 2025 Children's Wainwright Prize for Non-Fiction is...
University of Cambridge: Think Big: Secrets of Bees, @benhoarewild , illustrated by @nina_chakrabarti (@nosycrow )
Engaging, fact-packed, and visually dazzling, Think Big: Secrets of Bees transforms science into wonder. It invites children to marvel at the small creatures who sustain our planet, while inspiring curiosity and care.
#WainwrightPrize #StoriesThatConnect
The world looks ravishing today. Thank you @nhsengland š
Had a life-changing operation this week - thanks to doctors, nurses and other NHS staff from a rainbow of nations - and now I can see well for the first time in a very long time. Everythingās so bright, vibrant, contrastyā¦ Iād actually forgotten what things really looked like.
I lost the sight in one eye over 5 years ago and - I havenāt said this before - have been gradually losing the sight in my other. Iām no stranger to hospital as Iām Immunosuppressed and have had a load of other health issues (catching full-blown bovine TB wasnāt fun - donāt recommend!) but having a big op on your only working eye was pretty anxious-making.
Finally the risk of delaying was worse than the risk of operating, so I had the cataract removed, my stuck-down pupil cut free and a few other internal bits and bobs sorted that Iāll spare you.
And now I can see swifts fly through a bright sky again.
Mr & Mrs š„°
Some of the toads we pick up as theyāre crossing the road are impatient to get on with the main eventā¦
The (smaller) male toadās grip is impressive. Like a human baby, thereās no way heās letting go of the thing he wants and needs most.
@froglifers@somersetwt
Happy 100th Birthday Sir David & thank you š Will never forget this morning in 2016ā¦
A fragment still on my phone from my 90 starstruck, uplifting, thrilling minutes with the most extraordinary and very down-to-earth human.
Tawny owl had a narrow escape - it lived. But we need to talk more about birds & windows
As with birds & cats, thereās a bit of a taboo about this whole subject, at least when it comes to our own homes.
Living here in the countryside Iāve realised just how many birds crash into glass - over the years weāve had everything from bullfinches & woodpeckers to a kingfisher & now this owl. Maybe half die? Iām not sureā¦
Everyone loves light-filled homes - which via solar gain can be environmentally sound design - but the hidden cost is huge numbers of dead birds. Often theyāre scavenged or fly away, fatally stunned or wounded, so weāre blissfully unaware.
Weāve added honeysuckle & other planting around this window but itās not perfect. Also, those sticky raptor-shape decals donāt really work - youād have to put so many on the glass, no one would ever actually do it.
I donāt know what the answer is but wonder how often itās even acknowledged as a problem
Oh my heart a wood warbler!!! My first here for over 5 years š
Thought weād lost them - theyāre still in the wooded combes of the Quantocks, but getting rarer & I havenāt heard one here, in my favourite place, just up the valley, for so so long.
These gorgeous wood waifs are the same colour as the carpets of sorrel & spring-green beech all around them. Their accelerating song is supposed to sound like a coin spinning on a marble countertop - clips 1&2. What do you reckon? I think itās a bit like that maybe, but with a wilder fizzy energy.
I also heard pied flycatcher & redstart, cuckoos, marsh tits & more, but today it was the wood warbler that stole my heart.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this wood. Itās messy, trees fall over & onto each other, there are old hazel pollards with holly skirts, violet-spangled leaf litter, fern-covered oaks, alders growing midstream & grand avenues of beechā¦ in late April, thereās so much to take in, itās almost too much
Tideworn, oxidised, barnacledā¦ the endlessly gazing iron men of Crosby are epic. The girls & I loved meeting them & wondering
There were redshanks feeding at their feet, with the windfarm out at sea a reminder of the climate emergency. (Perhaps also the fact that some figures are half-submerged?)
My Polish gran, a refugee, arrived in the UK in 1945 by ship at Liverpool Docks, just south of here, so maybe these metal men also bear witness to human comings & goings, from Ireland across the water & beyond.
Surely Antony Gormleyās Another Place is one of the greatest pieces of British public art?
Hoopoe-watching with SWIFT Osprey 7.5 x 42s - my most treasured possessionā¦ 1986, age 13
Dadās unearthed a trove of family pics incl
a few of me Iāve not seen for ages. On this Greek-island-paradise I remember seeing hoopoes, alpine swifts, Scops owls, black-eared wheatears, blue rock thrushesā¦ enough to blow my bird-obsessed teen mind!
This was the age of Dan Air BAC One-Elevens when you could still smoke at the back of the planeā¦ and when it was a huge privilege to go on family holidays to the Med.
Shapes of Nature is @thetimes childrenās book of the week š
Quite chuffed! Itās not easy to get featured in national media if youāre a childrenās writerā¦
Been in the good old @guardian a couple of times (thanks @imogenrussellwilliams !) but this is the first time my actual mugshotās been in the paper. To be honest they shouldāve used a lovely snail. Or maybe a spiralling pine cone or close-up of starfish podia š¤
The review did say Shapes of Nature is all about the design - theyāre right! I always say childrenās nature books have to look amazing & itās true. Smiljka, Owen & the @dkbooks@dkbooksindia teams in London & Uttar Pradesh have done an awesome job.
@dkbooks@dklearning š„°
@bathlitagency@the_inkpot_collective
Welcome to my office. Some (rare!) pics of guided nature rambles using all our senses š
We watched lekking mining bees, saw how snail shells spiral, hugged trees, counted petals, listened to jackdaws, used moss as a compass, sniffed some pellitory, held ladybirds, stroked lichen & learned how burdock burrs inspired Velcro. The children were amazing. But as ever, I learned the most
Thanks for having me again @shaftesburybookfestival & to the fab Karen, Amber & the team at @foldedorset@thegrosvenorarmsshaftesbury for organising the friendliest book festival
And thanks @dkbooks for publishing Shapes of Nature - you can see it in its supersized glory in the Folde shop window in the last pic
These photos are shared with permission of the parents & carers
OUT TODAY: Ben describes his latest book with DK as a āglittering cabinet of curiositiesā. A bold and beautiful reference book where photography and design work in an innovative way to celebrate the shapes and textures of the natural world from butterflies and beetles to crystals and seashells.
If any book deserves the word stunning, itās this one. Buy it from us at the link in bio.
#BathLiteraryAgency
@dkbooks@benhoarewild
