“How come scientists always look so happy?” A colleague, looking over my shoulder at the review copy of Victoria Miles’s Wild Science, caught the flavour of the book in a glance. It is true. There’s Bruce McLellan, grizzly bear man, holding two grizzly cubs, the backs of his hands covered in deep scratches but smiling from behind his frozen beard. There’s Minga O’Brian crouched among her gannet decoys, grinning like a kid. And Janet Tyburec, who’s regularly pissed on by bats, looks as happy as a gal can look. These are people who deal with cold, danger, disappointment, mosquitoes, avalanches, isolation, and boredom and who say of their lives, “It is a privilege.” Wild Science covers a variety of subjects, from wildlife conservation to animal biology to career planning, but mainly it is about people who love what they do.

The organization of the book is tidy without being Procrustean. Each of 10 chapters begins with an incident from the field: a beached whale rescue, a late-night bat tagging, the wild pursuit of a leatherback turtle. Here Miles really shines as a writer, with vivid metaphors. A manatee calf beside its mother, seen from the air, is “a star in the shadow of a moon.” If we could hear bat echolocation calls they would be as loud as a smoke alarm. The stories are shapely and varied. She grabs our attention without resorting to that familiar GORY GRIZZLY BEAR ATTACK!! style of nature writing.

Some of the material, such as the blue whale rescue, is naturally narrative: a problem, a variety of difficulties overcome with intelligence, hard work, and co-operation, and a happy ending. Much of Miles’s material is more difficult to shape. The attempt to lure gannets to nest on Quebec’s Île aux Perroquets did not succeed as planned, but here the real story that emerges is of the poignant long-term nature of much scientific research, sometimes lasting through several human generations. The story of Phyllis, the white wolf of the West, is a splendid final chapter, shot through with the emotion of an Ernest Thompson Seton short story. Any of these would make a great 10-minute classroom read-aloud.

The stories are followed by biographical snapshots of the scientists involved. What was he like as a kid? What kind of education did she have? They came to their jobs via many routes. Marianne Riedman took a straight line from biology in high school to her position as director of sea otter research at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Ian Stirling, world expert on polar bears, credits boyhood hunting trips as the source of his conservation ethic. Bat-woman Tyburec would have become a vet if she hadn’t been allergic to pet dander. This is real-life career guidance, stressing heart over head, and giving tacit encouragement to kids who feel like lame ducks or lone wolves. One common thread is that all these scientists, urban, rural, and small town, spent their childhoods outdoors. It looks as though you don’t conceive a passion for nature staring at a screen.

Section three is the more strictly science component. Here Miles has chosen to be flexible as she covers such topics as echolocation, wildlife mapping, satellite tracking, and all the cool tech stuff of science. Again, her writing is lively. She calls juvenile whales the “teenage drivers” of the sea. Discussing the relationship between wolves and snow conditions she writes, “If snow were a pizza, wolves would order up deep-dish and thin crust every time.” The final section – encyclopedia-type animal notes on food and reproduction – is more updated and focused than a typical encyclopedia on questions of endangered status and habitat health.

Information books for kids always involve questions of apparatus. Wild Science is designed to look like a field notebook. Coloured pages identify the various sections; the page design is lively without being hyperactive; and the photos are largely original to the book, many courtesy of the researchers themselves. An appendix of resources is excellent, especially in its choice of websites, which give the young reader a chance to find out what is currently happening with manatee mapping or the status of marmots on Vancouver Island.

The issue of how to explain unfamiliar terms and concepts to young readers is always vexing. In this case some terms are explained right in the text and this works well. Some words are in bold type and included in a glossary, but why point to the glossary for a definition of “grapnel” but, in the same sentence, explain “gaff” in the text? The glossary includes “pectoral,” but “dorsal,” also in the text, is not explained at all.

These minor inconsistencies, along with a scattering of spelling, punctuation, and usage errors (I don’t think they really mean that bats “bare” two young in late spring), mar what is otherwise such a good production. One more pass by an eagle-eyed copy editor would have done the trick. A later printing, which the book certainly merits, could tidy these up. Meanwhile, Wild Science. should be on the shelves, next to Barry Shell’s Great Canadian Scientists (also Raincoast), for kids who, while doing their project on polar bears, might just be lured into the world of those smiling wildlife scientists.