Wild Design by Kimberly Ridley

Wild Design: Nature’s Architects By Kimberly Ridley
Princeton Architectural Press, 2021

It would be nice to believe that a book about the intricate natural constructions produced by our planet's plants and animals could foster an appreciation for nature powerful enough to move people toward aggressive action to prevent further climate change. Realistic or not, Kimberly Ridley, the author of Wild Design: Nature’s Architects, hopes that if she draws attention to these delicate creations, readers will take action to protect the plants and animals that create them. Ridley also intends for her book to, “rekindle your sense of wonder” and to encourage you to, “see the world beyond your window with new eyes.” After reading Ridley’s celebration of nature’s most brilliant designers and builders, only the most jaded will fail to gain a greater appreciation for the other life forms that share our planet.

Ridley, a science essayist and writer of science books for children, knows how to create that sense of wonder. Each of the book's eight chapters contains a highly readable introduction to the subject and tidbits of unusual information on everything from crystals to beavers to fungi to birds. As you would expect from a book about unique natural creations, Wild Design is packed with illustrations. Interestingly, Ridley chose to use paintings and drawings created by natural historians in the 17th through the early 20th centuries instead of modern photographs. She intended for these images to force the “eye to linger so the mind can contemplate each subject depicted.” These highly-detailed works of art produced through intense observation and talent allow the eye to catch on the unusual or important features of each construction, which creates a greater appreciation of the natural world and the natural historians who created the images.

For readers of a certain age, Wild Design, with its antique illustrations and small print captions, may call to mind their junior high school Earth Science textbook, as might the description of the rock cycle, the Mohs Scale, and the anatomy of a flower. But Ridley’s prose is something unlikely to be found in a textbook. Her writing is lively, clear, and enthusiastic. In a discussion of prairie dog behavior, she writes, “An extended family, or ‘coterie’, of prairie dogs maintain each burrow, in the process mixing and aerating the soil like fat, furry earthworms.” In addition to these kinds of playful images Ridley can also create elegant ones, as she does in this description of pond life, “Peer into the shallows and you might spot a bean-sized clump of pebbles or twigs trundling along the bottom. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you -- this is the clever ‘case’ of a caddisfly larva.” Ridley’s experience as a writer of books aimed at children comes through, but so does her command of the science.

At first glance Wild Design seems like a book that is short on text and long on pictures. It is a slim book, and each chapter consists of just a few pages of introductory writing followed by several more pages of illustrations complete with captions. But those captions are must-reads. They contain more than just a basic description of the items pictured on the page. Often the captions hide the most interesting facts and the most fascinating stories in the book. It is in the captions that Ridley shares the story of how scientists discovered the link between the molecular structure of a crystal and its larger form, the sad story of how the radiolarian Dictyocodon annasethe got its name, and which mushroom may be the inspiration for an iconic holiday character.

Wild Design is a book written for adults who are still capable of feeling the joy of discovering new things about the world in which we live. The book may not inspire the kind of environmental commitment necessary to halt a climate disaster, but those who read it are bound to be moved by the elegance of the natural creations Ridley describes and gain an increased awareness of the delicate balance between all life on Earth.

—Brian Bruce is an author and retired teacher who talks about books at Bookish: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrFo3tDRDVbX7PZjWx1qYA