Found a kid's nature journal from 1998 in a thrift store bin

I was digging through a box of old school stuff at a Goodwill in Mesa last weekend and found this green notebook. The first half is just simple drawings of trees and birds, labeled in big kid writing. But then, about halfway through, the drawings get way more detailed. There's a whole page on different types of cloud shapes, with notes like 'cumulus means heap' and the dates they were seen. The last entry is a full map of their backyard with little flags marking where they found specific bugs. It's like you can see the exact moment this kid went from just doodling to really, really watching the world. It must have been over one summer, because all the detailed stuff is dated between June and August. I wonder if a teacher or a parent gave them a field guide or something. Has anyone else found a notebook where you could actually watch someone's hobby click into place like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

wyatt_chen861mo ago

My buddy found a diary from a kid obsessed with train schedules once.

danielgonzalez1mo ago

Wait, did he read any of it? I mean, what do you even write about train schedules every day?