It didn’t take long for Johnson to realize that his experience would make a cool book. “It was kind of magical,” Johnson said, “this experience of having these cool things pop out at me that had been right there in front of my face and notice and pay attention every day as I was walking past.” He realized that he didn’t have much more of an answer for her than “tree,” so he challenged himself to learn about all the things his daughter was pointing out to him-not just the tree, but what kind of tree it was, and what stage of its life it was in at the moment.

She’d be pointing at the trees mostly and saying, ‘What’s that?’” “Walking with my daughter every day taking her to daycare,” Johnson told the Daily Dot in an interview, “she was really interested in all of the living things that we were passing. A new book, Unseen City, aims to open people’s eyes to the fascinating world of their nonhuman neighbors.Īuthor Nate Johnson, who also writes for the environmentalist news outlet Grist, told the Daily Dot that he was inspired to write the book when his daughter started to ask about the world around her. If a rat wanders into your home, a raccoon gets into the trash on your street, or a tree falls on the power line to your building, it suddenly reminds you that there’s more than than just humans, concrete, and steel in your neighborhood.īut while you’re going about your morning commute, you may miss the snail on the leaf of the plant outside the coffee shop, or the fact that the pigeons scattering as you approach the shop are actually missing bits of their feet. We’re usually only aware of the critters and plants with which we share our cities when they get in our way.

Unseen City by Nathanael Johnson