Julys Title Pick for Adults: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a scientist – a professor of environmental biology – and she is also a member of the Potawatomi nation, of the Indigenous people of North America. She brings both her Indigenous and Western scientific training, as well as memories and personal stories from her life together in this book of essays, which will be for many an introduction to the stories and beliefs of Native American culture, but also an insight into the inner workings of plants and trees. Robin is a warm, inclusive and inviting guide to these worlds. The message of many of the essays is that we must draw on both ancient cultures and scientific innovation if we are to ward off imminent climate and environmental crisis, but what impresses most throughout the essays is the author’s practicality, her sense of grounded hopefulness and belief in human beings.

The long essays in Braiding Sweetgrass have been explored many times in Shared Reading groups, and were recommended for this year’s Reader Bookshelf by Kate Middleton, a Reader Leader and founder of The Reading Revolution, an international partner organisation to The Reader in New Zealand. Kate enthused: ‘For us Reader Leaders the idea of scientists as active listeners led by curiosity resonates with our Shared Reading practice. We can also relate to the writer’s desire to make the stories of science more accessible – they are great stories!’

Records of Shared Reading groups around the UK who have read some of the essays together show how much members appreciate the beauty of Kimmerer’s writing and the new perspectives it introduces.

One group spent four weeks reading the essay ‘Witch Hazel’, which is written from the perspective of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s daughter about the unlikely friendship between her mother and an elderly neighbour. One group member said 'This story gives me much hope because it shows what people can be to each other - the story spoke of medicine coming from the woods, from plants, but it also shows how people can be medicine to each other.' A take away for another member was 'that you have to be active in life, active in your relationships - whether that be with another human being, or with plants or animals - you have to put the work into it if you are to get learning from it.'

Another reader in a different group spoke of feeling ‘shivers’ of recognition at the line ‘they made a balm for loneliness together’.

In another group, who were reading the essay ‘Asters and Goldenrod’, one group member arrived in an angry and frustrated mood, but the writing soon had a positive effect, as the Reader Leader explained: ‘As the piece went on they were stopping to delight in sections of prose, laugh and exclaim “How true!” It was…so rewarding to see the positive impact on the person as they gradually softened and opened out after difficult morning. The power of Shared Reading!’

By Frances Macmillan, Literature Engagement Lead