Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

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I can understand Chris as I too spent a childhood emerged in nature and was"a different" child to my peer group. The content is superb but I do have reservations about the writing, which is why it gets a 4 rather than 5. Description: Chris Packham is a naturalist, nature photographer and author, best known for his television work. Chris Packham's memoir Fingers in the Sparkle Jar is a brutal, beautiful book that subverts the memoir genre through third person accounts of events involving him.

Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham | Waterstones Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham | Waterstones

There’s lots of Chris’s unhappy school times, unhappy home times, and happier times out with nature. That wasn't really the substance I was looking for though, on the face of it that's pretty horrific and the airy fairy waffle surrounding it doesn't exactly put it in any kind of context to alleviate the sense of a dirty sort of PETA-baiting larceny.

Packham is president of the British Trust for Ornithology, the Hawk Conservancy Trust and the Bat Conservation Trust and vice-president of the RSPB, WWT and Butterfly Conservation. It doesn’t say what they are but as this ‘play’ continues to unfold the reader is left in no doubt that the young Chris is enraptured by the territorial battle of a group of Speckled Wood butterflies, left with a memory that would sparkle for a lifetime. I am sure growing up with aspergers at that time must have been incredibly difficult and it was nice to see that he could escape into his own bubble with nature and enjoy life through sightings of wildlife. Chris does an excellent job providing us with a snapshot of his struggles and difficulties in not understanding the social world that we all live in.

Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir by Packham, Chris Book Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir by Packham, Chris Book

When other children were playing together in the street, young Chris was out collecting bugs in jars, birds eggs, wings, pellets and other specimens for his curious collection. In this inspiring, uplifting and heartwarming memoir, world-renowned veterinary surgeon Professor Noel Fitzpatrick explores his journey to becoming The Supervet. Having just finished reading "Fingers in the Sparkle Jar", I can say that it give a detailed insight into Chris Packham's early life. This is the very beginning of a book that I found completely absorbing and very difficult to put down.Thus we begin to build a picture of the personality of the boy and how he is viewed by those around him. Blend ‘A Kestrel for a Knave‘ with ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning‘ and then dim the lights to make it darker and that’s where this book takes you. This illuminating book contains a great deal of insight into Asperger’s syndrome and is definitely worth reading. As a memoir this is not essential information for the book because it stands alone as a magnificent boy’s own story demanding the reader consider what may have drove him to seek suicide as an escape from his difficult life.