I’ve read so many rave reviews on here for the original non-fiction book; I do want to be clear that my daughter and I read this version: BRAIDING SWEETGRASS FOR YOUNG ADULTS.
This text was adapted by Monique Gray Smith, from the original, and I wish I had also read that one, so I could have a better idea of how to compare them.
This “adaptation” was just 300 pages, yet it was so dense in material and so inconsistent in tone, it took me a little over three months to read it aloud to my 15-year-old daughter. (We incorporated this book into a full unit, for her 9th grade Science).
This is how my teenager summarized the book: “sometimes it was so interesting, like that story about the Three Sisters (corn, beans and squash), and so boring, I couldn’t pay attention anymore, like when she talked about research.”
As the author herself writes, “Order and stability emerge out of chaos.”
My daughter would give this book three stars, and I think that’s important to know, as she is the target audience. Not just that; she’s probably an ideal reader for this book, as she’s an environmentalist and an avid gardener.
I’m giving it four stars. I appreciate the book’s unique contribution to our curriculum. The author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, is a professor of Environmental Biology, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and a Mom (what a combo!).
Several of the stories in here will stick with me, for a long time. I’m also an avid gardener, and I’m always trying to figure out how to grow things more effectively in my yard. My brother’s influence out in my gardens has taken my “backyard variety” interest up to the beginnings of a graduate level pursuit, but I still have far to go and books like this one light up my thinking and make me want to be (a) more respectful of the land I’m working on and (b) more attentive to the fusion, the synergy, of what’s taking place in that magical soil!
The artwork, by Nicole Neidhardt, took the book to the next level (honestly, I wish all books were illustrated, at least a little), and the breakout vocabulary words, peppered throughout and highlighted, were a nice touch as well.
I feel richer for reading it, despite some of the unevenness in the Voice and the set-up, and one chapter, in particular, really got to me. It was the chapter called “Old Growth Children,” and it was about the gorgeous Cedar trees, of the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Ms. Kimmerer writes:
Traditional teachings share that the power of cedars is so great that it can flow into a worthy person who leans back into her trunk. When death came, so came the cedar coffin. The first and last embrace of a human being was in the arms of Mother Cedar.
When I read this aloud to my daughter, I started crying. It is such a Full Circle moment, to think of a baby being rocked in a Cedar cradle, and an elder being buried in a simple Cedar coffin.
I have always been mortified by how we bury our dead, here in the States. I think it is OBNOXIOUS that we strong-arm the grief-stricken and we demand that they bury their dead in coffins lined with synthetic fabrics and materials (probably still off-gassing) and tell them where they can and can not be laid to rest. I mean, honestly, is there any limit to our greed? Does EVERYTHING we do need to be based in profit??
I’m not interested in dying anytime soon, but I wanted to share that the thought of being buried in a beautiful, naturally fragrant coffin made of precious Cedar would make me feel as though my life were being truly honored.
I’ll tell you: I’d feel like a Queen Ascending to her throne, smooth sailing on a craft made of Cedar.