Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

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There’s lots of Chris’s unhappy school times, unhappy home times, and happier times out with nature. It’s beautifully written and the messages and story stayed with me long after I turned the last page.

Chris Packham is a well known presence on our TV screens, presenting The Really Wild Show from 1986 to 1995 and most recently Springwatch. But the creature he most coveted was a kestrel, a real live kestrel, and one day he was to realise that dream. 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.I'd expected something like the chatty style of Packham's presenting, informative and straightforward, but no - this is non-chronological, impressionistic, almost fractured in places. Summary: A young boy is viewed as an outsider by his neighbours, but finds solace in his love of the natural world. It is telling of his character that this book is so meticulously and beautifully honed, the language carefully considered and precisely arranged, as though it were a rare eggshell cosseted in cotton wool in a display cabinet.

This is a raw, strange, mesmerising book; an impressionistic take on Packham’s life and the natural world that transformed it. It has beautiful lines, draws the reader in, reveals so much about the author’s inner self and those with Asperger Syndrome and finally has fascinating information about many, many animals.At times I found it difficult to follow, sometimes it’s written in the first person,sometimes that changes without explanation. This slightly weird kid grew up to be a slightly weird, and troubled, adult, and the honesty of the book is what makes it very powerful. In second place was the classic Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson and in third was Common Ground by Rob Cowen. It's a pretty dark read with themes of suicide and the like and Packham ends up killing most things he comes into contact with.

Chris Packham, well-known TV presenter and wildlife expert, takes us back to his childhood in 1960s Southampton, and we meet a curious child who doesn't quite fit in to the societal norm. I am very flattered because up until this point almost all the discussion ‘Sparkle Jar’ has generated has been about my Aspergers . He was also fascinated by dinosaurs and amassed an incredible amount of knowledge about his favourite subject. What I especially enjoyed about this memoir was the feel of a kid growing up in the sixties and seventies. Upfalling from his warm cocoon he slowly ambled to the computing machine to make his tumultuous thoughts heard.Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir is well written and highly original: non-linear, multiple points of view, and rooted in Chris's Asperger's Syndrome condition. It reads almost like a novel and Packham even refers to himself from the third person and looks at himself through the eyes of other people.