Mike Shultz’s review of National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America

Usually my rule is that I have to read an entire book before I can count it as "read" on Goodreads, but that doesn't make sense for a reference book, plus this one has been my constant companion for the past 2 summers. My son and I have identified numerous trees with the help of this book. I've thumbed through other tree guides in bookstores and researched others on Amazon and settled on this as one of the best.

Key features: good photographs, interesting background information, and helpful hints for identification. In fact, probably my favorite feature is the ID tips that accompany almost every entry. These tips focus on a reality that other tree books seem to ignore: it is difficult for the beginner to tell apart certain similar species, for example red oak vs. black oak. Most books just seem to describe each and go merrily along. This book specifically says things like, "Red oak is easily confused with black oak. The key differences are..." and so forth. Smart and helpful.

One complaint is that the photographs are inconsistent. I would prefer an isolated photo of every leaf, isolated and alone against a white background. Some of the entries have such a photo, but some have a photo in-situ of an entire branch with the rest of the tree or a forest floor in the background. This hinders identification. Also, some fruit/seed photos are present, but not all. However, it's impossible for one book to do everything without becoming a gigantic, expensive textbook. I did also like what I saw when browsing Sibley's guide, which is multiple drawings of leaves from the same species, showing the variation possible (another difficulty for the beginner.) But the bottom line is that over the past 2 years I've gone from being able to ID the dozen or so trees that most people can probably ID to at least 50. (My 5-yr-old son can ID nearly as many as I can.) Most of that is thanks to this book. (As a side note, a few iPhone apps like LeafSnap were helpful, but overall, this book was far more helpful than apps or online tree ID aids.)

I'm tempted to hide this review because of spoilers. Ha ha!

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