Braiding Sweetgrass was important to me as a writer of children’s environmental nonfiction because environmental news is often depressing. I work hard to add hope to my stories to empower young readers to feel grateful for nature’s gifts and to care about protecting them.
Braiding Sweetgrass felt like going to a well and being replenished. I felt simultaneously inspired and validated. I will reread this book frequently.
Called the work of "a mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose" (Publishers Weekly) and the book that, "anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture will love," by Library Journal, Braiding Sweetgrass is poised to be a classic of nature writing. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take "us on a journey that is…
At
first glance, a story about addiction in a part of our country I have no
personal experience with would not have been my first choice, but my friend
(who I admire) raved about this book, so how could I refuse her?
Barbara
Kingsolver’s characters are so beautifully drawn, their voices and their visual
details, that I was lured into their world. They leaped off the page and had me
rooting for their successes and railing against the injustices they faced.
At
the same time, Kingsolver left me with a satisfying ending that made it okay
for me to close the book, knowing the characters would be well cared for.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
As an author, I always pay attention to setting and scene changes in a book. But in Women Talking, there essentially were no scene changes. Yet it works.
Based on a horrific true story of violence and betrayal perpetrated on several Mennonite women by men of their community, the book is a fictionalized hours-long discussion by the women as they imagine a way forward. The stakes are enormous.
In this discussion, words matter to these women who have never been allowed to attend school but who want to adhere to the tenets of their religion, and as a writer I found it fascinating to eavesdrop on a possible conversation they might have had.
Now a major motion picture from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
“This amazing, sad, shocking, but touching novel, based on a real-life event, could be right out of The Handmaid's Tale.” -Margaret Atwood, on Twitter
"Scorching . . . a wry, freewheeling novel of ideas that touches on the nature of evil, questions of free will, collective responsibility, cultural determinism, and, above all, forgiveness." -New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice
One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For…
For thousands of years, the Elwha River flowed north to the sea. The river churned with salmon, which helped feed bears, otters, and eagles. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, known as the Strong People, located in the Pacific Northwest, were grateful for the river’s abundance.
All that changed in the 1790s when strangers came who did not understand the Elwha River’s gifts. The strangers built dams, and the environmental consequences were disastrous.
Métis illustrator Natasha Donovan and I join forces to tell the story of the Elwha River, chronicling how the Strong People successfully fought to restore the river and their way of life.
