Who Learns Will Love: The Story of Peace Valley Nature Center by C. Constable

 

Summary: (Amazon)

WHO LEARNS WILL LOVE anecdotally and pictorially recounts the tale of a determined, creative woman who establishes a Bucks County, PA nature center. Her enthusiasm ignites a love of nature in all who are around her. The early history, environmental education programs, wildlife, and children’s interactions with nature are included in this engaging chronicle of Peace Valley Nature Center.

Carolyn with Corey

Peace Valley Nature Center Website: https://www.peacevalleynaturecenter.org/

Videos of PVNC:

1. Great Blue Heron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S7uWuDRsb0

2. In the Fall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPQCeZxbnFE

Discussion Questions (by Carolyn, who will lead the discussion) 

Conversations with Birds by P. Kumar

 

Summary (Milkweed Editions): “Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself.”

So begins this lively collection of essays by acclaimed filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar. Growing up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India, Kumar took for granted her immersion in a lush natural world. After moving to North America as a teenager, she found herself increasingly distanced from more than human life and discouraged by the civilization she saw contributing to its destruction. It was only in her twenties, living in Los Angeles and working on films, that she began to rediscover her place in the landscape—and in the cosmos—by way of watching birds.

Tracing her movements across the American West, this stirring collection of essays brings the avian world richly to life. Kumar’s perspective is not that of a list keeper, counting and cataloguing species. Rather, from the mango-colored western tanager that rescues her from a bout of altitude sickness in Sequoia National Park to ancient sandhill cranes in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and from the snowy plovers building shallow nests with bits of shell and grass to the white-breasted nuthatch that regularly visits the apricot tree behind her family’s casita in Santa Fe, for Kumar, birds “become a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world.”

At a time when climate change, habitat loss, and the reckless use of pesticides are causing widespread extinction of species, Kumar’s reflections on these messengers from our distant past and harbingers of our future offer luminous evidence of her suggestion that “seeds of transformation lie dormant in all of our hearts. Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us.”

Reviews: 

Kirkus Review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/priyanka-kumar/conversations-with-birds/

Publisher Site: https://milkweed.org/book/conversations-with-birds

(Amazon)

Interviews:

1. Utah Public Radio: https://www.upr.org/show/access-utah/2022-10-18/conversations-with-birds-with-priyanka-kumar-on-tuesdays-access-utah

2. North Carolina Wildlife Federation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQeut7EsMac

3. Shondaland: https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a41925066/conversations-with-birds-priyanka-kumar/

Author's Movies and Shows: 

The Song of the Little Road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy3e_lzBI9Y

Kaatrukkenna Veli: https://www.hotstar.com/in/tv/kaatrukkenna-veli/1260051971/list/episodes/t-1_2_3195

Discussion Questions: (Heidi to lead):

(Western Tanager - ebird)

Notes on the Landscape of Home by Susan Shetterly

(Amazon)

Summary (Good Reads): “If you pay attention to the land where you live, you enter into conversation with it, until it becomes a voice inside you, and some of the boundaries between you and it dissolve,” write Susan Hand Shetterly. In this collection of elegant, spare, and often passionate essays, Shetterly explores what it is to live in a Down East coastal town, and to pay attention, over time, to what it offers of land, water, wildlife, and community. She takes her cue from Henry David Thoreau and Wendell Berry, who advocate for the virtues of staying in one place, believing that as we delve deeper into the landscape of home the more we learn about the world. As in many other places, this particular home place is in trouble. Shetterly celebrates the work of communities to restore environments their people know and love, and takes a closeup look at what is changing and what has been lost. Among her subjects are the reestablishment of the bald eagle, the reintroduction of the American turkey in Maine, and the turkey vulture’s northward trend. She also writes about shorebird migrations, the bluefin tuna and the humpback and right whales in the Gulf of Maine, counting alewives along a stream in the spring, seaweed cultivation in a bay, a forest’s rebirth, the island that gave her the imaginative space she needed, and more. She recounts how she and her neighbors kept each other company at a distance during the long months of the pandemic, and she celebrates coastal culture, its particular, deep history that anchors a person’s sense of place.

Review:

Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/notes-on-the-landscape-of-home-review-in-praise-of-local-wonders-11663281851

Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IFuKQozvTw

Author's Website: http://www.susanhandshetterly.com/recent-work-reviews/

(Wall Street Journal)

Discussion Questions (John will lead this discussion and here are his questions)

Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raises Families, Creates Beauty and Achieve Peace by C. Safina

 

Summary (Amazon): Some believe that culture is strictly a human phenomenon. But this book reveals cultures of other-than-human beings in some of Earth’s remaining wild places. It shows how if you’re a sperm whale, a scarlet macaw, or a chimpanzee, you too come to understand yourself as an individual within a particular community that does things in specific ways, that has traditions. Alongside genes, culture is a second form of inheritance, passed through generations as pools of learned knowledge. As situations change, social learning―culture―allows behaviors to adjust much faster than genes can adapt.

Becoming Wild brings readers into intimate proximity with various nonhuman individuals in their free-living communities. It presents a revelatory account of how animals function beyond our usual view. Safina shows that for non-humans and humans alike, culture comprises the answers to the question, “How do we live here?” It unites individuals within a group identity. But cultural groups often seek to avoid, or even be hostile toward, other factions. By showing that this is true across species, Safina illuminates why human cultural tensions remain maddeningly intractable despite the arbitrariness of many of our differences. Becoming Wild takes readers behind the curtain of life on Earth, to witness from a new vantage point the most world-saving of perceptions: how we are all connected.

Reviews: 

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/a-radically-different-view-of-animal-cultures/2020/05/14/349209d4-742d-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html

NPR: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/834307724/in-becoming-wild-carl-safina-takes-us-inside-the-cultures-of-animals

Author's Website: https://www.carlsafina.org/

(NYTimes)

Videos and Interviews:

1. TNS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOWyKjDZofw

2. Saw Mill River Audubon Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lk56iPAehA

3. Audubon Everglades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkEX_1oyNqg

Discussion Questions 

(IOE.org)

The Journey of Trees by Zach St. George

 

Summary: (Amazon) Forests are restless. Any time a tree dies or a new one sprouts, the forest that includes it has shifted. When new trees sprout in the same direction, the whole forest begins to migrate, sometimes at astonishing rates. Today, however, an array of obstacles―humans felling trees by the billions, invasive pests transported through global trade―threaten to overwhelm these vital movements. Worst of all, the climate is changing faster than ever before, and forests are struggling to keep up.

A deft blend of science reporting and travel writing, The Journeys of Trees explores the evolving movements of forests by focusing on five trees: giant sequoia, ash, black spruce, Florida torreya, and Monterey pine. Journalist Zach St. George visits these trees in forests across continents, finding sequoias losing their needles in California, fossil records showing the paths of ancient forests in Alaska, domesticated pines in New Zealand, and tender new sprouts of blight-resistant American chestnuts in New Hampshire. Everywhere he goes, St. George meets lively people on conservation’s front lines, from an ecologist studying droughts to an evolutionary evangelist with plans to save a dying species. He treks through the woods with activists, biologists, and foresters, each with their own role to play in the fight for the uncertain future of our environment.

An eye-opening investigation into forest migration past and present, The Journeys of Trees examines how we can all help our trees, and our planet, survive and thrive.

Review: 

WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-journeys-of-trees-review-giants-in-transit-11602256237

Interviews:

Powell's Bookshop in Portland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG9Bjm_7s7o

NPR: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/28/896030567/believe-it-or-not-forests-migrate-but-not-fast-enough-for-climate-change

(wwnorton.com)

Author's Website: https://zachstgeorge.com/

Articles/Programs:

Giant Sequoia Genetic Conservation Program: http://www.torreyaguardians.org/sequoia-lunak-2015.pdf

Redwood Genome Project: https://www.savetheredwoods.org/project/redwood-genome-project/

Discussion Questions: 

(npr.org)

Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven

 

Summary: (Amazon) When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana. She was as emotionally isolated as she was physically, but she viewed the house as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that would help her fit into society. In the meantime, she taught remotely and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park.

Then one day she realized that a mangy-looking fox was showing up on her property every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. She had never had a regular visitor before. How do you even talk to a fox? She brought out her camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to him from The Little Prince. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends.

From the fox, Catherine learned the single most important thing about loneliness: we are never alone when we are connected to the natural world. Friends, however, cannot save each other from the uncontained forces of nature. 

Fox and I is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and coping with inevitable loss—and of how that loss can be transformed into meaning. It is both a timely tale of solitude and belonging as well as a timeless story of one woman whose immersion in the natural world will change the way we view our surroundings—each tree, weed, flower, stone, or fox.

(Washingtonpost.com)

Author's Website: https://www.catherineraven.com/;

Reviews:

NPR: https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1013302180/friendship-between-a-woman-and-a-fox-leads-to-transformation-in-fox-i

NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/06/books/review/fox-and-i-catherine-raven.html

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/fox-and-i-catherine-raven-book/2021/07/06/457c3320-de6a-11eb-9f54-7eee10b5fcd2_story.html

(csmonitor.com)

Videos:

Book Trailer: https://www.pw.org/content/fox_and_i

https://leslielindsay.com/2021/07/07/fox-and-i/

Interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_EmhP_YwlY

American Book Association: https://www.bookweb.org/news/indies-introduce-qa-catherine-raven-1626081

Article by Author in National Geographic:

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2021/12/notes-from-an-author-catherine-raven-on-finding-solace-in-the-wilderness-of-the-american-west

Discussion Questions: (Heidi will lead the discussion)

(wsj.org)

The Seaweed Chronicles by Susan Shetterly

 

Summary (Amazon): “Seaweed is ancient and basic, a testament to the tenacious beginnings of life on earth,” writes Susan Hand Shetterly in this elegant, fascinating book. “Why wouldn’t seaweeds be a protean life source for the lives that have evolved since?” On a planet facing environmental change and diminishing natural resources, seaweed is increasingly important as a source of food and as a fundamental part of our global ecosystem.

In Seaweed Chronicles, Shetterly takes readers deep into the world of this essential organism by providing an immersive, often poetic look at life on the rugged shores of her beloved Gulf of Maine, where the growth and harvesting of seaweed is becoming a major industry. While examining the life cycle of seaweed and its place in the environment, she tells the stories of the men and women who farm and harvest it—and who are fighting to protect this critical species against forces both natural and man-made. Ideal for readers of such books as The Hidden Life of Trees and How to Read Water, Seaweed Chronicles is a deeply informative look at a little understood and too often unappreciated part of our habitat.

Reviews: 

1. Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/an-homage-to-seaweed-and-a-plea-for-wise-management-of-this-valuable-resource/2018/08/23/7a51a198-8909-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html

2. Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/seaweed-chronicles-review-a-fragile-world-at-the-waters-edge-1533928547

(Bangor Daily News)  Sheep and Flat Island

Videos and Interviews:

1. Interview: Surry Historical Society: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu5Puj77aqI

2. Interview: https://vimeo.com/341578655

(medium.com)

Author's Website: http://www.susanhandshetterly.com/

Discussion Questions (Anne will be leading the discussion and also wrote the questions)

(WSJ.org)

Rooted by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Summary: (Amazon) In Rooted, cutting-edge science supports a truth that poets, artists, mystics, and earth-based cultures across the world have proclaimed over millennia: life on this planet is radically interconnected. Our bodies, thoughts, minds, and spirits are affected by the whole of nature, and they affect this whole in return. In this time of crisis, how can we best live upon our imperiled, beloved earth?

Award-winning writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s highly personal new book is a brilliant invitation to live with the earth in both simple and profound ways—from walking barefoot in the woods and reimagining our relationship with animals and trees, to examining the very language we use to describe and think about nature. She invokes rootedness as a way of being in concert with the wilderness—and wildness—that sustains humans and all of life.

In the tradition of Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Mary Oliver, Haupt writes with urgency and grace, reminding us that at the crossroads of science, nature, and spirit we find true hope. Each chapter provides tools for bringing our unique gifts to the fore and transforming our sense of belonging within the magic and wonder of the natural world. 

Reviews:

1. Blog: https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2021/06/rooted.html

Author's Website: https://www.lyandalynnhaupt.com/books

(Spirtuality Health)

Interviews:

1. Magers and Quinn Bookshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR2vncPlv_w

Discussion Questions from online:

1. Little Brown and Co. : https://www.littlebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Rooted-Reading-Group-Guide.pdf

Discussion Questions: (Please check back)

(https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2021/06/rooted.html)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

 

Summary (Amazon): Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the story of a dramatic year in Virginia's Roanoke Valley, where Annie Dillard set out to chronicle incidents of "beauty tangled in a rapture with violence."

Dillard's personal narrative highlights one year's exploration on foot in the Virginia region through which Tinker Creek runs. In the summer, she stalks muskrats in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall, she watches a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She tries to con a coot; she collects pond water and examines it under a microscope. She unties a snake skin, witnesses a flood, and plays King of the Meadow with a field of grasshoppers. The result is an exhilarating tale of nature and its seasons."

(wikipedia)

Reviews:

1. Kirkus: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/annie-dillard/pilgrim-at-tinker-creek/

2. NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/24/archives/pilgrim-at-tinker-creek-meditation-on-seeing-by-annie-dillard-271.html

3. The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2015/02/the-thoreau-of-the-suburbs/385128/

Interviews:

1. wNYC: https://www.wnyc.org/story/david-remnick-speaks-annie-dillard/

2. NPR: https://freshairarchive.org/guests/annie-dillard

(wikipedia)

Author's Website: http://www.anniedillard.com/

Supporting materials including questions, response journals and reading guides: 

1. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=qb_oers

2. Response Journal: https://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/pilgrim/pilgrim1.cfm

3. Reading Guide: https://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/documents/SeeingandStalkingtheActionofCreation.pdf

4. A Visual Approach: http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2013/03/08/a-visual-approach-to-syntactical-and-image-patterns-in-annie-dillards-pilgrim-at-tinker-creek-essay-images-anna-maria-johnson/

(wikipedia)

Discussion Questions: 

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Kimmerer

Summary: (from Amazon): As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Reviews:

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/23/robin-wall-kimmerer-people-cant-understand-the-world-as-a-gift-unless-someone-shows-them-how

Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/11/20/arts/braiding-sweetgrass-author-robin-wall-kimmerer-restoring-relationship-with-land/

(gardeningknowhow.com)

Interviews: 

Away to Garden: https://awaytogarden.com/braiding-sweetgrass-robin-wall-kimmerer/

New York Botanical Garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDQ5WDLQb9M

The Sun Magazine: https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/484/two-ways-of-knowing

Harvard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R4whGlL-EA

Black Ash basket making video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzJ--mhi2l4

Native American Tribes Maps: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/06/24/323665644/the-map-of-native-american-tribes-youve-never-seen-before

(http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/american-indian)

Onondaga Lake Article: https://www.syracuse.com/news/2020/02/opponents-say-onondaga-lake-may-still-be-too-contaminated-for-beach.html

(Onondaga Lake - CNYCentral.com)

Author's Sites: 

SUNY, ESF:  https://www.esf.edu/faculty/kimmerer/

Center for Humans and Nature: https://www.esf.edu/faculty/kimmerer/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/braidingsweetgrass/

(startribune.com)

Discussion Questions from others:

1. Longwood Gardens: https://longwoodgardens.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/Discussion_And_Question_Guide_Braiding_Sweetgrass.pdf

2. Heated Book Club: https://heated.world/p/book-club-discussion-thread-braiding/comments

3. The Sustainability Club: https://karareardon21.wixsite.com/website

4. University of Utah with Bibliography: 

https://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/CommunityReads/BraidingSweetgrass

Discussion Questions: (These questions come from the sources listed above. Heidi will be leading the discussion.)

1. What themes or concepts resonated the most with you, e.g the gift economy, reciprocity, gratitude, etc.?

2. Kimmerer states that in the Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as "the younger brothers of Creation." (p.9) Do you agree that humans can learn from plants and animals? If so, how can we humble ourselves to "listen" to the wisdom of the plants?

3. The "Gift of Strawberries" (pp.22-32) introduces the concept "that the essence of a gift economy is at its root, reciprocity" (p. 28) How can "the relationship of gratitude and reciprocity that has been developed increase the evolutionary fitness of both plant and animal?" (p. 30)

4. 'Learning the Grammar of Animacy' (pp. 48-59) introduces the concept of communing with nature by getting to know more about plants and recognize that they are not inanimate objects. What can you do to start learning about the plants in your immediate environment" If you addressed the plants as something other than 'it', would that change your attitude? How?

5. In 'Allegiance to Gratitude' (pp. 103-117), the author shares the Thanksgiving Address used by the indigenous people to give thanks to the land. She states, "..it is the credo for a culture of gratitude." (p. 115) How does the this address support the concept of "our mutual allegiance as human delegates to the democracy of the species"? (p. 116) What does this mean to you?

6. In 'Putting Down Roots' (pp. 254-267), the author states, "Losing a plant can threaten a culture in much the same was as losing a language." (p. 261) Based on the discussion in this chapter, how can plants repeat the history of their people? (p. 262). What are some examples that she give to support her statement, "Reciprocity is a key to success'? (p. 262)

7. The chapter, 'Old-Growth Children' (pp. 277-292), captures the essence of sustainability and how we can learn from an old-growth forest. What tools do forest ecosystem have for "dealing with massive disturbance..."? What is the difference between industrial and sustainable forestry? What can our role be in the regeneration of these ecosystems? (p. 284)

8. The Onondaga people still live the precepts of the Great Law and still believe that, in return for the gifts of Mother Earth, human people have responsibility for caring for the nonhuman people, for stewardship of the land." (p. 319) What do you believe are the responsibilities of our government and our society in aiding the Onondaga Nation in its efforts to restore Onondaga Lake to a healthy state?

9. Reflecting upon Kimmerer's statement, "environmentalism becomes synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings." (p. 327) She reminds us that "Even a wounded world is feeding us . . giving us moments of wonder and joy." Do you agree that the environmental movement does not focus enough on the joy of the natural world? If yes, how can that be fixed? Also, what actions can you take within your community to bring about positive environmentalism and ecological restoration/preservation?

(Black Ash basket woven by John Pigeon)