Birds were "the objects of my greatest delight," wrote John James Audubon (1785-1851), founder of modern ornithology and one of the world's greatest bird painters. His masterpiece, The Birds of America depicts almost five hundred North American bird species, each image-lifelike and life size-rendered in vibrant color. Audubon was also an explorer, a woodsman, a hunter, an entertaining and prolific writer, and an energetic self-promoter. Through talent and dogged determination, he rose from backwoods obscurity to international fame.

In This Strange Wilderness, award-winning author Nancy Plain brings together the amazing story of this American icon's career and the beautiful images that are his legacy. Before Audubon, no one had seen, drawn, or written so much about the animals of this largely uncharted young country. Aware that the wilderness and its wildlife were changing even as he watched, Audubon remained committed almost to the end of his life "to search out the things which have been hidden since the creation of this wondrous world." This Strange Wilderness details his art and writing, transporting the reader back to the frontiers of early nineteenth-century America.

This book has been graded for interest at 9+ years.

There are 136 pages in this book. It is an anthology. This book was published 2015 by University of Nebraska Press .

Nancy Plain is the author of numerous children's books, including Light on the Prairie: Solomon D. Butcher, Photographer of Nebraska's Pioneer Days (available in a Bison Books edition), winner of the Spur Award for Best Western Juvenile Nonfiction, the Nebraska Book Award for Youth Nonfiction and the Will Rogers Medallion Award.

This book has the following chapters: Introduction: Drawn from Nature
Chapter One: Beloved Boy
Chapter Two: America, My Country
Chapter Three: The American Woodsman
Chapter Four: Down the Mississippi
Chapter Five: On the Wing
Chapter Six: The Birds of America
Chapter Seven: Team Audubon
Chapter Eight: This Strange Wilderness
Chapter Nine: Audubon Then and Now
Appendix: Looking for Audubon and His World
Glossary
Bibliography
Index