To those who critically read either of Allan W. Eckert's other naturalist books, "The Great Auk" or "The Silent Sky," the technical problems of his "Wild Season" are no surprises. Both "Great Auk" and "Silent Sky," in spite of their difficulties, at least make one pause in awe and sorrow before lonely museum displays of the auk and passenger pigeon—now extinct.

Eckert experienced several essential literary problems in both "Great Auk" and "Silent Sky": how to tell the stories of auks and pigeons to adult humans; how to inform about bird behavior and yet create "novel-story" quality; how to make a conversation message both subtle and compelling. Eckert didn't completely solve these problems in "Great Auk" and "Silent Sky."

Nor unfortunately has he solved them in "Wild Season," the story of May life in and around an Illinois-Wisconsin border-lake. Earlier Eckert portrayed two species' unsuccesful life-struggles. Now...