The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, John Muir
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, John Muir
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The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

Author: John Muir

Narrator: Pete MacDonald

Unabridged: 5 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/30/2025


Synopsis

Before he became one of America’s most influential environmental voices, John Muir was a curious Scottish immigrant boy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier. This honest and vivid memoir traces his journey from a strict religious upbringing to the early stirrings of a lifelong love for nature.In simple yet moving detail, Muir recalls farm life, his inventive mechanical creations, and the challenges of a hard pioneer existence. What shines through is his relentless curiosity about the natural world and the quiet strength that would later shape the U.S. conservation movement.A compelling read for fans of nature writing, American history, and personal memoirs, this book offers a glimpse into the early mind of the man who helped inspire the creation of Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Club.

About John Muir

John Muir (1838 - 1914), known as both John of the Mountains and The Father of the National Parks, was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books, which tell of his adventures in nature, have been read by millions. His activism, including founding The Sierra Club, has helped to preserve natural areas such as the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bam cooks the books on September 22, 2016

After reading Alaska Days with John Muir, written by his friend and traveling companion Samuel Young, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Muir's own account of his early life: beginning in East Lothian, Scotland, where he was born in 1838; immigrated with his father and brother to America in 1849; settled......more

Goodreads review by Dougie on December 10, 2018

So as well as being the father of the national parks, a fearless wanderer, a raconteur, a force for all that is good in the world, John Muir was also Caractacus Potts. This book recounts his childhood from his earliest days in Dunbar, Scotland, the family's move to Wisconsin where they set up their......more

Goodreads review by Linda on November 04, 2012

This is a book I re-read, this time for a book group, where each student read a different book by a naturalist. They’ve been studying nature writing and the teacher wanted to take them deeper into how the writers were changed by their own environment, thus the group and talk about how we also might......more

Goodreads review by Dinah on December 26, 2022

John Muir’s personal accounts of moving from Scotland to Wisconsin interested me as I spent at least 15 years of my youth in Wisconsin. I could relate to his description of Winter and some of the birds and other wildlife. The more I learn of Muir— my interest grows as I have a fondness for nature an......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on April 08, 2024

John Muir’s memoir is a reflective archive of a life lived both as a boy in 19th century Scotland and as a teenage immigrant to the wilderness of Wisconsin. Much of his account, whilst fascinating to the modern reader in how starkly different life as a child in Scotland and indeed America is today a......more