Diary of a Young Naturalist

 

Dara McAnulty is a 16-year-old Irish boy.  He lives with his parents, his 13-year-old brother Lorcan, and his 9-year-old sister Bláthnaid.  Everyone in his family, except his dad, is autistic -- high-functioning, probably what until recently was called Asperger's syndrome.  Both parents have university degrees, and his dad works in marine and environmental science.  As Dara puts it

Together, we make for an eccentric and chaotic bunch.  We're pretty formidable, apparently.  We're as close as otters, and huddled together, we make our way in the world.

Yes, Dara is a writer, a very good one, and a fervid naturalist.  On his fourth birthday, he bought his first nature guide, paying for it with coins given him by his parents.  He began writing observations on scraps of paper when he was very young, as a way of clarifying and "processing" his thoughts.  At the age of twelve, he began writing a blog, a blog that has drawn the attention of people of all ages, including environmental workers and activists.  And he has now written a book, Diary of a Young Naturalist.

Dara's book is based on his diary entries between his fourteenth and his fifteenth birthdays.  In the early months, his family lived in the western county of Fermanagh.  Dara found himself routinely ridiculed and bullied by his classmates; school was a nightmare, despite his receiving top grades.  But he lived his real life outside of school hours, in the fields and mountains surrounding his home.  There, he was in his element, studying and observing wildlife of every sort with a knowledgeable and discerning eye.

He was stunned when his folks decided to move east to County Down in the early summer, midway through the book.  Change of any kind is difficult for autistic people, and this was a change away from a countryside that he loved dearly.  Much of the book, behind his discussion of plants, animals, and insects, is the story of his adaptation to his new home and new school.  A new school where for the first time he found friends among students, kids he happily calls "nerds."

But the book is primarily a collection of his observations of wildlife -- including plant life -- and how he as an individual reacts to them.  

A goldeneye duck.  They're so beautiful.  Perhaps it's here alone for the winter because there's no female around.  We rarely think of all that effort being made below the water, those webbed propellers whirring so that the bird can glide with such ease and grace on the river.  It's just like being autistic.  On the surface, no one realizes the work needed, the energy used, so you can blend in and be like everyone else.

He can sit, transfixed, just in his own yard, watching and mentally cataloguing the behavior of tiny insects that the rest of us never notice.  Or he can join his siblings, climbing in the mountains that lie near his home, both in County Down and back in Fermanagh county.  

When you first encounter the cliffs here during the breeding season, between May and July, everything gloriously slams into you at once.  The not-quite pungent smell.  The kaleidoscope of sounds.  There are thousands of birds:  kittiwakes, razorbills, fulmars and puffins, all wheeling or diving, patrolling and protecting, sauntering over the shoulder of the stack.  Mind-blowing.  Magnificent.  This is a place vibrating with survival and endurance.  I feel tickled and almost hysterical, but must take it all in. 

As the year progresses, and he adapts to his new school in County Down, he feels himself maturing.  He had already made many contacts with wildlife and climate change advocates -- including Greta Thunberg -- in writing, and he felt reasonably confident speaking before large groups.  (It was the smaller groups, where he could watch individual faces and exhaust himself trying to read their reactions, that bothered him.)  But now, friendship and acceptance by some of his peers makes social, in-person interactions easier and even enjoyable.

He took a major step forward, socially and politically, by standing outside his school with signs protesting wildlife policies. The positive responses he received from fellow students encouraged him to form a school club devoted to those causes, something he would have considered impossible at his prior school.

He watches his brother and sister, still talking exuberantly and laughing loudly -- behavior that caused him to be laughed at and bullied in earlier years -- and realizes how he is changing.

I'm more self-conscious now.  I'm older, more aware of myself.  I still have vivid memories of being uninhibited like them, always talking, explaining, feeling intense, bubbling excitement.  This early teenage phase in my life is quieter, more inward-looking, reticent, scarred by the hurt of others.    

But when alone with the family, he still joins in their whoops and shouts when they spot an unexpected bird or plant.  He still does a little dance of joy and enthusiasm when not in public.  After all, even his mother is autistic, and is given to the same loud bursts of enthusiasm. 

His original diary notes have of course been edited for publication.  Self-edited, and edited together with his family and with the editor supplied by the small English publisher.  

“All my family got together, trying to coax this book into something that was manageable,” says McAnulty. But Róisín [his mom] says she wouldn’t want people to think his writing was overly shaped by others. “Although it has been edited sensitively and beautifully, the first draft was actually incredible.”  ¹

In  his Acknowledgements, Dara pays tribute to the sensitivity of the  publisher's editing.

To Adrian at Little Toller [the publisher] for not trying to "adult" my voice in the editing process.  For smoothing my edges and for giving me, an autistic teenager, the opportunity to tell my story, in its irreverent rawness and childish wonder. 

"Childlike wonder" would be more appropriate.  There is nothing "childish" about this book.  While never pretending to be anything but a young teenager, Dara writes with clarity, maturity, and erudition.  He refers to adult writers and poets.  (And he endears  himself to me by expressing his liking for the novels of Ursula K. Le Guin!) 

His book concludes:

As I ran to join my family for the last stretch of the walk at Glendalough, leaving St. Kevin and the blackbird behind, a solar glare draped over us, connected us to the land with invisible stirrings.  A longer, heavier line is about to be cast into the world.  My heart is opening.  I'm ready.

An impressive and heartwarming book.  Keep the name of this young author in mind.  You'll hear more of him.

(I had my first two orders of this book from Amazon canceled because it was out of stock. Amazon finally fulfilled it on a third try through a British bookstore. Amazon now advertises that the book will be in stock January 15.)

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  ¹Patrick Barkham interview, The Guardian (May 16, 2020)