What can we say about a book written by a 16-year-old? A book that comes wrapped in a cover of jaunting yellows, with the title in a liberal freehand, so it looks like it’ll be fun. And the young author – like most of his immediate family – is on the autism spectrum, which brings a particular slant to his life and means he was often bullied. What can one possibly say except “splendid, well done”? To lavish anything but praise would be cruel. He’s a kid, a young activist, enthusiastic to a fault. He has his difficulties. The book has already won prizes. Just be kind and quietly put the book on the pile with the rest of the unread. What can we say about another – yet another – first-person account of being in nature?
But this book is refreshing. For one thing, there is the scampering energy of it. The tumbling, intelligent, young prose rolls quickly through the year. There’s the variety of the entries. (Compare one’s own teenage diaries. “Saturday. Did nothing. Chips for tea.”) There is the flitting back and forth between outer and inner worlds. The joyful appetite for flowers, hoverflies, water boatmen. (And the knowledge – he understands the science too.) And chiefly there is the family, Dara’s loving enablers, who are caught in this book at a crucial time, the upheaval of a move from Fermanagh to County Down.
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