Rainy Summer Reading

Much needed summer rain is falling, and I’m trapped inside waiting for a repair guy, so here are some gatherings from around the blogosphere that I’ve enjoyed lately. . . .

Anyone interested in environmental education will want to visit the fifth edition of Learning in the Great Outdoors, a carnival hosted this month by Miss Rumphius Effect. Miss R, aka Tricia, blogs often and well about children’s literature, and her carnival edition includes links to posts recommending books to enrich a homeschool garden lesson, instructions on making a nature journal, and thoughts on using a classic, early 20th century environmental education volume, Handbook of Nature Study, by Anna Botsford Comstock, also for homeschooling. Has anyone else observed that homeschoolers seem to be at the forefront of outdoor ed & getting kids outside these days?

Our friends at 10,000 Birds have posted another item after PAS’s heart, “Keep Every Cog and Wheel.” Mike’s essay is a plea for saving parts of the natural world not currently recognized as commercially valuable, e.g., spotted owls. He likens our natural commons to a precarious Jenga game tower, with spotted owls as vital, if unappreciated, building blocks. Then he turns to Aldo Leopold for his game playing philosophy, quoting from A Sand County Almanac, “The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” I suspect that if we all played by Aldo Leopold’s rules, we’d all win.

There’s an ecstatic review of Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods over at Natural Patriot, calling it “a seminal work in environmentalism”. Also check out Natural Patriot’s Essential Reading list. A Sand County Almanac’s on it, so NP is going on my blogroll today.

Another intriguing list of green books can be found at Ideal Bite. I have mixed feelings about this site, which sends out daily emails if you subscribe, with tips on “light green” living. Many are useful and fun, but many more seem to be pushing products--$150 designer handbags that happen to be made of hemp, $40 bamboo tshirts, etc. But I like this book list, especially if you can get the titles at the library. I hadn’t heard of Ignition, described as “a collection of personal essays by writers, scholars, and activists who have worked to stop global warming.” And I haven’t yet read Plenty, “a memoir about what happens when two people decide to eat only food produced within a 100-mile radius for a year.” But I can second the nomination of Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a book that has literally changed my family’s eating life.

Wishing you some refreshing rain so you can enjoy a day of late summer reading.

Act Locally, Read Frequently

“Think globally. Act locally. Read frequently.” I like the motto so much that I wish I’d thought of it. But instead I found it on the website of Arlington READS Green, a project of Arlington County, Virginia and the Arlington Library system. Participants are invited to read “green” books and join in book discussions, author talks, a used book sale, and other enviro-friendly book-related happenings. It’s the literary branch of a many-limbed effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Arlington County, a program aptly named Fresh AIRE (Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions).

So what are Arlington READS Green readers reading? The five selected books include 3 nonfiction titles directly focused on global warming ( An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert, and The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock). To leaven the mix, two novels are also suggested: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, and Hoot by Carl Hiassen. Oddly, for this nonfiction fan, I’ve read the novels and not the others but recognize all as fine choices to stimulate discussion and heighten awareness. Anyone who lives in the Arlington area may want to check the schedule to learn if you can take part in the discussions. Tonight, for example, is a gathering for kids & teens to chat about Hoot, both book and movie.

But those of us who can’t get to that library can think about public libraries in our own neighborhoods. Could a program like Arlington READS Green work there? Could you help start one, or at least suggest it to the library staff? Another possibility is to suggest one of the GREEN titles (or another appropriate book) to your current book club. The parents' book club at my daughter’s school read Prodigal Summer with much pleasure and lively conversation. I took along a handy reading guide as a source of discussion questions and background info. The best result of the meeting was new fans for Kingsolver, one of the finest nature writers working today. And I know that while reading one book about the environment doesn’t always change your life, reading lots has to have an impact. So three cheers for Arlington READS Green! Let get out there and read frequently together.