A View from the Oak: The Private Worlds of Other Creatures

Winner of the National Book Award for children's literature, The View from the Oak is a groundbreaking work of ethology―the study of the way animals perceive the environment―from two of America's most respected educators. With this new, illustrated edition, The New Press brings back into print this classic exploration of the strange but marvelous ways in which living creatures experience space, sense time, and communicate with each other.

What do flowers in a meadow look like to a bee? How does the world appear to a snake who "sees' by detecting minute temperature changes? What is it like to live in the water strider's two-dimensional universe? Including hands-on games and activities, The View from the Oak helps readers enter into the fascinating, often invisible world of nature. It is a "superb book for families to share" (Winston-Salem Journal).

Herbert Kohl is a celebrated writer, teacher, and advocate. He is the author of more than forty books, including "I Won't Learn from You": And Other Thoughts on Creative Maladjustment, Should We Burn Babar?: Essays on Children's Literature and the Power of Stories, The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching, Stupidity and Tears: Teaching and Learning in Troubled Times, She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and The Herb Kohl Reader: Awakening the Heart of Teaching (all published by The New Press), as well as the bestselling classic 36 Children. He is a co-author, with Judith Kohl, of The View from the Oak: The Private Worlds of Other Creatures and a co-editor, with Tom Oppenheim, of The Muses Go to School: Inspiring Stories About the Importance of Arts in Education, both published by The New Press. A recipient of a National Book Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, he was the founder and first director of the Teachers and Writers Collaborative in New York City, has served as a senior fellow at the Open Society Institute, and established the PEN West Center. In 2010, Kohl was named a Guggenheim Fellow in education. He lives in Point Arena, California.

Judith Kohl is the coauthor of Pack Band and Colony and of The Long Haul.