My nine-year-old son is a budding naturalist. We bought him a huge glass cabinet to house his collections of insects, shells, marine animals, rocks, nests, bones, dried flowers and more. Since he loves to collect and explore nature, I decided to use this as a learning opportunity. We began studying the classification of living things. We have visited many natural history and nature museums. And we started reading about the lives of other famous naturalists.

It's month two of Jump Into a Book's Read Kids Classics Challenge, and my recommendation this month is George Selden's The Cricket in Times Square. Both my preschooler and my older elementary child loved this book, and it inspired us to find a pet cricket of our own.