The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Leland Childs Childs, who regularly contributes to Morning Edition on NPR, is a naturalist, a geologist and has a general interest in the history, biology, culture and lore surrounding American deserts and locating water therein. Beautiful inspiring imagery and poetically written prose... and I am only into the first chapter. It's a mix between a travel journal and a natural history narrative as the author is a geologist. It is intensely personal, almost spiritual in his observations and meanderings through the desert, yet it is riddled with eloquently compressed scientific knowledge and history. These observations and musing come from his quest of mapping out water locations for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, even the smallest of transient puddles or unexpected pools protected deep in craggy granite.