Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

She steps into a patch of sweetgrass and asks its permission to take some. She waits. When she feels that she has been accepted, she leaves a bit of tobacco from her pouch as a gift, according to the Law of Reciprocity. Only then does she begin to harvest some stems of sweetgrass—never the first plant, and never more than half. Those who take all of a species or clearcut the land fall prey to the Wendigo, a ravenous beast of indigenous folklore who is never satiated and is always seeking to devour.

Robin Wall Kimmerer takes her students on camping trips out to the forest or swamp so that they can turn their Latin nomenclature into true knowledge. Kimmerer has found a way to combine her Ph.D. in plant ecology with her ancestral Potawatomi traditional wisdom in practices that will bring healing to the land, the plants, and the humans who live here. As she writes of her daughters’ childhoods, her nurturing spirit shines through stories of maple sugaring and pond reclamation. The chapters are interwoven with Potawatomi creation myths, memoirs of family and friends, and detailed scientific experiments. Kimmerer believes that we have lost touch with the natural world, and that we have forfeited so much peace and wisdom from not listening and receiving its gifts.

Everywhere I turned, I heard Braiding Sweetgrass mentioned as the best resource to teach us how to reconnect spiritually with creation and what was variously called the “non-human” world, the “other-than-human” world, or the “more-than-human” world. I listened to the audiobook, which is almost seventeen hours long and is read in Kimmerer’s soft, kind voice. Although it was originally published in 2013, our library system still has holds lists on our many copies of both the print and digital editions. In other words, the message is enduring and is growing more and more important every day. The stories and ideas are so absorbing that I often arrived at work with no clear memory of my commute, floating in a peaceful, thoughtful state.

If you are a botanist or a camper, an ecologist or a gardener, or just someone who watches water disappearing in western North America and swallowing Florida, Kimmerer has a unique perspective on how we can begin to heal. She can stand in a rainstorm and watch droplets form on moss, name every tiny bit of the plants in Latin, and then draw spiritual lessons from her observations. Those of us who are descendants of European immigrants, steeped in consumerism and rugged individualism, have much to learn from indigenous understandings of the land and of human relationships with the natural world.

Very highly recommended. A must-read.

Disclaimer: I listened to an audiobook edition of this book. Opinions expressed are solely my own and may not reflect those of my employer or anyone else.

Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr

Zeno is headed to the library in February, 2020, to work with a group of kids he’s come to love. They’re putting on a play that Zeno translated from the ancient Greek. Seymour is headed to the library, too, to set off a homemade bomb.

Anna lives in Constantinople in 1452 with her seamstress sister who is going blind. Anna is learning to read by deciphering a set of parchments she found while stealing and selling old manuscripts in order to pay for her sister’s treatment. Omeir is outside of Constantinople with the Sultan’s troops. He was conscripted into service with his beloved oxen, helping to build the siegeworks to bring down the city walls.

Konstance is in a spaceship in Mission Year 55 with her family, part of a generational effort to save humanity from an earth that has been destroyed by pollution and to start anew on the planet Beta Oph2. By stepping onto her Perambulator, Konstance can join her friends and their teacher in the huge library in virtual reality. She loves the atlas of Earth and spends whole days inside, walking around whatever country she chooses that day.

Weaving back and forth in time, Doerr divides the sections by inserting passages from the folio of Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Antonius Diogenes, the ancient manuscript that connects all of these stories.

A 622-page novel may seem daunting, but Anthony Doerr, the bestselling author of All the Light We Cannot See (reviewed here), makes the pages fly by. Each of the characters is compelling individually, but the growing realization of how these stories set in different times and places weave together is stunning. It is through the tiny details and ordinary days of small, seemingly inconsequential lives that we perceive the greater story of the fall of rich kingdoms, powerful cultures, and even entire planets. Whether the power is held by soulless developers, greedy sultans, or vast corporations, most people are at the mercy of a stranger’s voracious quest for wealth and dominance. Yet, Doerr counterbalances this sad story of mankind’s endless appetite for conquest with a deep love of nature and a gratitude for its endurance and continual rebirth. It is in the sight of an owl, the sprouting of a seed, or the first lungful of fresh air that our souls are touched.

From battlefields to hearths, Doerr’s stories are so fascinating that the reader becomes attached to every character. In each plot thread, someone is absorbed in the satisfying work of scholarly research and storytelling, and the novel is filled with a love for libraries and librarians. This is a book that will appeal to every type of reader, since the author brilliantly combined historical fiction, contemporary realistic fiction, and science fiction, all in one volume. Set aside some time for this one. It will be THE literary event of the year. The publication date is September 28^th.

Very highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I read an advance copy of this book, with thanks to @simonandschuster and @scribnerbooks. Opinions expressed are solely my own and may not reflect those of my employer or anyone else.

If You Want to Visit a Sea Garden, by Kay Weisman and Roy Henry Vickers

“If you want to visit a sea garden… you’ll have to get up really early. These magical gardens only reveal themselves at the lowest tides.”

For over 3,000 years, the Native Peoples of the Pacific Northwest have been farming shellfish, according to this striking informational picture book from Canada. They build manmade reefs in order to provide more surface area for growing shellfish. In this way, the “farmers” can harvest up to four times as many clams than would grow naturally, enough to feed the entire community.

This informational picture book uses minimal text to teach children about this ancient and ongoing practice. However, it is the glorious artwork that makes this book stand out. In horizontal layouts, each double-page spread portrays seascapes in glowing colors, using silhouettes and patterns to invoke feelings of peace, cooperation, and wisdom. The illustrator, Roy Henry Vickers, is a chieftain in the House of Walkus in Wuikinuxv, and his artwork employs indigenous motifs reflected in anthropomorphized creatures and tribal signs in the sky. The last page goes into greater detail about the history of sea gardens and the current refurbishments underway off the coast of British Columbia, as well as a website address for further research.

Unique and beautiful, this little book enriches our understanding of working in partnership with nature to provide for ourselves and to care for our environment.

Disclaimer: I read a library copy of this book. Opinions expressed are solely my own and may not reflect those of my employer or anyone else.

A Good Neighborhood, by Therese Anne Fowler

Valerie Anston-Holt is working in her beloved garden when she sees a new white family move into the subdivision behind her Raleigh home. It’s the recently gentrified neighborhood for people with new money who want to masquerade as people with old money. Brad Whitman is just the type: built his HVAC company from the ground up, and now he’s a media darling. He married his desperately grateful receptionist and became a stepfather to her little Juniper. Since then, they’ve had a child of their own, and Brad’s carefully curated image is complete.

Xavier is raking leaves for his mom when he sees Juniper sunbathing by the pool. Although the quiet musician is hesitant around girls, the two strike up a friendship that is well on its way to becoming something more. When Valerie sues Brad for cutting the roots of her ancient oak tree while installing his pool, she is unaware of her son’s delicate relationship, and when Brad finds out that Juniper is seeing a young black man, he reacts like a man whose property is threatened—and Brad is all about his property.

Although author Therese Anne Fowler receives national acclaim, she lives here in the Raleigh area, which is abuzz with speculation about the neighborhood that inspired her scandalous novel. No, we reason, those are McMansions, that one’s too settled, the other one’s filled with spec houses. It keeps us busy. In the meantime, while our streets are filled with protestors shouting about racism in our governmental systems, Fowler has written about the quiet bigotry, along with all the other slimy evil, that resides quietly in our hearts. Here is where the battle is pitched, in the shadows, where people who seem so nice are revealed to be self-seeking creatures armored with socially acceptable veneers.

Absorbing, infuriating, and compelling.

Disclaimer: I read an advance reader copy of this book. Opinions expressed are solely my own and may not reflect those of my employer or anyone else.

Join the No-Plastic Challenge!, by Scot Ritchie

Nick and his friends live by the seashore, and today they are going to have a picnic for Nick’s birthday. Unfortunately, they have seen the devastation that single-use plastics are causing for the land and animals around them, so they are attempting to have an outing without using any plastic. This diverse group of kids spends time in a home, a store, a fast-food restaurant, and the outdoors, offering elementary-school level information and suggestions for alternatives.

Although most people are unaware of how terribly severe this problem is, the positive tone of this title will motivate readers from knowledge into action. Plastic bags, disposable water bottles, and other single-use plastics are ending up in the stomachs of birds and fish, as well as other animals, and when we eat them, we ingest microplastics, too. As noted in the book, “every piece of plastic ever made is still around today!” (p. 22) However, the book’s goal is not to induce guilt, but rather to change habits. After describing the manufacturing process to produce plastic, the author notes the many excellent uses of plastic, particularly in medical needs. He even points out that some people with disabilities depend on plastic straws for drinking, removing some of the hysteria over plastic straws.

Ritchie gives many child-sized recommendations for alternatives to single-use plastics, and as an adult, I continued with online research, as well. We have been recyclers for decades, but I am concerned with the amount of plastic packaging we receive that cannot be recycled. After reading this book, I ordered a set of mesh bags for buying produce at the grocery store. Along with our canvas shopping bags, it’s one small step that we can take to reduce the growing demand for single-use plastics. Reading this book will help your kids to start thinking about conservation, but it will also cause the adults in the room to become much more aware of the ubiquity of plastic in our lives, and awareness is the first step to solutions.

Remember the Jeopardy champion who said that his secret to success was reading children’s books? As someone who selects children’s nonfiction for a large library system, I couldn’t agree more. We are all seriously fascinated by a few subjects, but we have a lively interest in hundreds more! Life is too fun and too short to be a world-renowned sage on all things. Well-written children’s nonfiction fills this gap perfectly. In addition to this book, also check out You Are Eating Plastic Every Day: What’s in Our Food?, by Danielle Smith-Llera.

If it can cause each reader to make one small change for the better, Join the No-Plastic Challenge is very highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I read a library copy of this book. Opinions expressed are solely my own and may not reflect those of my employer or anyone else.