Review: The Lost Book of Adventure by the Unknown Adventurer

The Lost Book of Adventure: from the notebooks of the Unknown Adventurer
by the Unknown Adventurer; edited by Teddy Keen

Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition
Pages: 192
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children's Books
Publication date: March 5, 2019
Suggested tags: middle grade, nonfiction, nature, adventure



From Goodreads:

"A facsimile edition of the tattered notebooks of the Unknown Adventurer, this love letter to the wild details everything you need to know about how to live and thrive in nature, from the principles of treehouse building to wilderness first aid.

If you are reading this, it means my notebooks have been found. I am leaving them here at camp for safekeeping along with a few other belongings that I won’t be taking with me. The notebooks are a lifetime’s worth of knowledge, which I’m passing on the you.

So reads an excerpt from the weatherworn letter discovered by nature enthusiast Teddy Keen on a recent trip to the Amazon, along with sketchbooks filled with details of extraordinary adventures and escapades, expedition advice, and survival methods, annotated with captivating colored-pencil drawings. It is thought that the sketchbooks were created for two young relatives of the author. Drawing on Teddy’s knowledge of the outdoors, the pages of the sketchbooks have been carefully transcribed for young readers, as they were originally intended.

You’ll be transported by riveting adventure tales from around the globe, like being dragged off by a hyena in Botswana, surviving a Saharan dust storm, being woken by an intrepid emperor penguin in Antarctica, and coming face-to-face with a venomous bushmaster (one of the most dangerous snakes on the planet)—all told in lyrical prose and illustrations that wonder at the mysterious beauty of the wild.

Having inspired the adventurous spirit in you, the Unknown Adventurer encourages you to set out on your own adventure with information on wild camping, rafting, exploration, and shelters and dens, plus tips on first aid and tying knots. Expert instructions on wilderness basics, like building a fire, what to do if you get lost, and how to build various types of shelters are accompanied by more specific skills culled from many years of experience, like baking campfire bread, creating a toothbrush from a twig, making a suture from soldier ants, and even how to pan for gold.

Find your way back to your primal self with the immersive text and glorious color artwork of this one-of-a-kind adventure book.

REMEMBER: be good, be adventurous…and look after your parents."

Where... where do I begin with this... I am speechless. I closed the book and felt like I was still lost inside it. And that is an instant *favorite* for me.

If I had been given this book when I was younger, this would have been one of my most treasured books. I would have read it over and over and over. I would have studied the skills it teaches, practiced them with whatever I could find in my backyard, and imagined myself going on adventures all over the world.

This is such an amazing, gorgeous book. It's exactly like opening up an adventurer's notebook: seeing all their beautiful watercolor sketches and handwritten details of their adventures, with little notes and reminders written just for you. It's filled with facts about nature and wildlife, about camping in all kinds of environments, about necessary skills and safety when out on an adventure. It's filled with illustrations to study, words to devour, information to absorb. It's absolutely incredible.

It looks like the age range for this book is middle grade through young adult; I think middle grade readers would probably enjoy this the most, and I think this book would appeal to so many different interests and purposes. Art lovers have a watercolor masterpiece to enjoy on every page. Fans of adventure stories have a journal full of snippets of adventures from all over the world. If you're looking for a book to spark imagination, to use as a story starter or a writing prompt (for any age writer, adults included), this one provides so many opportunities to take the information and images on the page and envision what happened in each location, to tell your own story about the Unknown Adventurer or use the settings and situations for your own characters' adventures.

I don't have the words to heap enough praise on this beautiful, wonderful, amazing book. I'll be buying myself a copy so I - and one day, my toddler, when he's old enough to not rip the pages out of this treasure - can devour every word over and over again, and then imagine new adventures of our own.

Final verdict: I'm obsessed with it! I thought this book was amazing! It's now officially one of my favorite books! I shall be shouting about it from the rooftops for days and I am currently recommending it to everyone I come in contact with!

{ Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy.
My reviews are honest and my opinions are my own; 

your reading experience may vary, so give it a read and see what you think. :) }