Robin Wall Kimmerer has composed a majestic soul-piercing work of art in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. Using thirty-two different vignettes, Kimmerer not only conveys the need for an emotional connection to the Land, but successfully creates the bond in the reader. Kimmerer leaves the reader with a conviction to actively care for the environment. Fulfilling her responsibility, the biggest challenge for the reader is to keep the connection strong, not giving in to despair after falling from the spiritual heights her book evokes.
A gifted storyteller, Kimmerer uses a variety of storytelling methods, going so far as to construct a story using the structure of a scientific research paper. Combining her authority as a professor of botany, her deep familiarity with the culture of her tribe, and her experience as a mother, Kimmerer speaks with a kind of power that is rarely—if ever—seen. Kimmerer shares an incredible wealth of information by giving Indigenous histories, Western knowledge, and personal vignettes as she describes an individual fungus or an entire ecosystem.
Each story speaks directly to the heart. The reader is pulled into the mind of a botanist in one chapter, that of a mother in another, to a professor, and more, yet no identity is ever independent of the others. Despite spending hours delighting in Kimmerer’s wonderful thought patterns and personality, the reader is left longing for more, feeling as though they only glimpsed the outermost layer of the onion that is Kimmerer. One of few true masterpieces, Braiding Sweetgrass is a book I would recommend to everyone. Maybe then humanity will take the path of lush green grass.
Robin Wall Kimmerer has composed a majestic soul-piercing work of art in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. Using thirty-two different vignettes, Kimmerer not only conveys the need for an emotional connection to the Land, but successfully creates the bond in the reader. Kimmerer leaves the reader with a conviction to actively care for the environment. Fulfilling her responsibility, the biggest challenge for the reader is to keep the connection strong, not giving in to despair after falling from the spiritual heights her book evokes.
A gifted storyteller, Kimmerer uses a variety of storytelling methods, going so far as to construct a story using the structure of a scientific research paper. Combining her authority as a professor of botany, her deep familiarity with the culture of her tribe, and her experience as a mother, Kimmerer speaks with a kind of power that is rarely—if ever—seen. Kimmerer shares an incredible wealth of information by giving Indigenous histories, Western knowledge, and personal vignettes as she describes an individual fungus or an entire ecosystem.
Each story speaks directly to the heart. The reader is pulled into the mind of a botanist in one chapter, that of a mother in another, to a professor, and more, yet no identity is ever independent of the others. Despite spending hours delighting in Kimmerer’s wonderful thought patterns and personality, the reader is left longing for more, feeling as though they only glimpsed the outermost layer of the onion that is Kimmerer. One of few true masterpieces, Braiding Sweetgrass is a book I would recommend to everyone. Maybe then humanity will take the path of lush green grass.