Not everyone is fortunate enough to live in the woods (we are) so there would need to be something to appeal to city folks. I raised my kids, who then raised my grandkids, with a kitchen garden. They delighted in showing it off to visitors and neighbors. And they can grow many ‘crops’ such as cherry tomatoes, swiss chard, lettuce, small cukes, in pots or window boxes.

With today’s valid concern about the cleanliness and safety of our produce, I’d suggest that possible topic.

Schools, as you know, often set up an area as a neighborhood garden to show kids how much fun it can be to plant and tend crops, then pick them to take to their homes.

OK, I’ll step down off my soapbox now…

What would make me pick such a book off the shelf? It would have to touch something that is already present within me. People will only take away something they are already predisposed to receive. To some degree, you’ll always be “preaching to the choir” – you’ll have to touch in the reader one or many of those aspects of vision which you list. But I guess that goes without saying really.

I think there are two facets to the appeal of a book – the theme, or purpose, of the book, and the language, both verbal and visual, and spirit of it. The what and the how, if you like. Most likely it’s the theme that attracts initially, but the language and spirit which holds the attention. If I’m to take it to the cash desk and take it home with me, it would have to have the promise of blowing on the sparks that a casual glance had ignited. And that is a very personal thing; what kindles a flame in one leaves another cold. So to reach a cross-section, variety will be key.

But going back to your brainstorm, it seems to me that a sense of wonder and delight in the natural world is perhaps the root from which grow so many of those aspirations you list. And if we believe that the inspiration for that wonder and delight is intrinsic in nature, then we simply need to have our eyes opened and our gaze brought to bear until we grasp it for ourselves.

And here, as Hamlet would have said, is the rub – to communicate such things visually, I can’t help thinking that you’re going to need large format, very high quality printed images. Although maybe you can keep the cost down by supplementing those with images which pick out a particular element of detail in a subject – images that can be small but highly detailed – and then use the text to show us the wonder that we might otherwise pass by.

I guess what I’m taking a very long and roundabout route to saying is: Show the readers your wonder and delight, let them share in it, hope that it will ignite similar responses of their own.