Sy Montgomery books

Best American Science and Nature Writing Reading Order

Children’s Reading Order

Non-Fiction

Scientists in the Field Reading Order

The Hummingbirds’ Gift Reading Order

Sy Montgomery is a naturalist and author who has spent her career writing about animals, from octopuses and pigs to hummingbirds and tigers. She began publishing in 1991 and has since written more than 90 books for both adult and young readers. Her adult non-fiction often blends personal memoir with natural history, while her children’s books in the Scientists in the Field series bring working scientists and their research to life for younger audiences.

Her most widely read book is The Soul of an Octopus (2015), a National Book Award finalist that chronicles her time befriending individual octopuses at the New England Aquarium. But her range is much broader than that. The Good Good Pig (2006) is a memoir about her family’s pet pig Christopher Hogwood, and How To Be A Good Creature (2018) tells the story of thirteen animals that shaped her life. On the children’s side, she has contributed extensively to the Scientists in the Field series, covering everything from tarantulas and tree kangaroos to great white sharks and snow leopards.

Montgomery lives in New Hampshire with her husband and various animals. She continues to write regularly, with recent books including Of Time and Turtles, Secrets of the Octopus, and What the Chicken Knows, all published between 2023 and 2024.