Geurilla Gardens of Nature Books

Free books? They’ll make your day if you happen upon them as I did yesterday morning. Free books in public places can promote literacy and build community too, according to Little Free Library.org. I was delighted to discover that one of their charming boxes has popped up in my neighborhood.

Peering inside, I noticed only about a dozen books—a Dan Brown novel, a classic children’s book, and other popular fiction, not my usual fare. But then I spotted Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education, by Michael Pollan. I started reading Pollan with An Omnivore’s Dilemma, his best-selling examination of our tangled and troubling food industry. But before becoming the leading critic of industrialized agriculture, Pollan was known as an adept, even dazzling, gardening writer. What more delightful way could I encounter his earlier work (which one reviewer says “is to gardening what Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler is to fishing") than in a neighborhood garden’s free library?

This particular little library is next to “The Other Barn,” a facility offering a safe place to hang out for teens after school. In contrast, our actual public library seems less then welcoming to youths' sometimes-raucous presence. A police officer guards the entrance at school dismissal time, and all couches have been removed to prevent loitering. Once, as I entered the library branch, a librarian warned me in a whisper, “Don’t stay long. Schools almost out!” The Little Free Library motto is “Take a Book, Return a Book,” and I went back today and tucked in a copy of a favorite teen book from my house--Megan Whelan Turner’s riveting historical fantasy, The Thief. I’ll be checking back, too, to see if it’s taken—and what surprise replaces it.

Wouldn’t it be tremendous if Little Free Libraries welcomed people of all ages in all neighborhoods? LFLs have been created for all sorts of reasons—memorials, anniversary celebrations, recipe and seed sharing—so why not to spread the word about nature protection and even climate disruption? Wouldn’t this be a great way to pass around our extra field guides, essay collections, Rachel Carson biographies, etc? Every nature center should at least have a Little Free Library with a copy of A Sand County Almanac, free for the taking. Think of the riches that would be returned?

Happy World Penguin Day

April 25, 2014

If you can’t celebrate World Penguin Day with a visit to Antarctica, a satisfying alternative is reading first hand accounts of Adelie colonies by an adventurous young ornithologist. Just out of college, Noah Stryker braved the world’s coldest, windiest continent for 3 months in 2009 to get to know some of the world’s most intriguing birds. Also a photographer, artist, and BirdBoy columnist for WildBird Magazine, Strycker impressed an editor at Oregon State University so much that she asked him to write a book, too. Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica deftly explores the intimate lives of penguins and the interns set out on the ice to study them. Publisher’s Weekly gave it a starred review and extolled, “At the age of 24, Strycker has already studied birds on six continents and his evocative writing reveals enough wit, meticulous description, and passion to satisfy any nature writing enthusiast (particularly young ones.)”

Strycker’s passion for penguins remains unabashed, and the birds feature prominently in his new book as well. The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human is a look at bird behavior as peripatetic as Strycker’s bird-chasing lifestyle. Topics range from social dominance hierarchies in barnyard fowl to the olfactory capabilities of vultures. Penguins knew the author well enough to untie his shoelaces, one indicator of the affable personality that Strycker says helps explain their star appeal. Even after being wrestled into submission so that adhesive tags could be applied to their backs, says Strycker, “They maintained their good-natured curiosity toward me despite my interference.” Yet, in examining their more complex behaviors, Strycker ponders seemingly incongruous fears. Why, for example, would birds that can chase fish in dark ocean waters avoid sunless winter habitats, even when teaming with prey? Following Strycker’s reasoning as he teases out what terrors may lurk in penguin imaginations is one of the chief pleasures of the book. To read my full review of The Thing with Feathers, please visit the Washington Independent Review of Books.

What Have You Been Reading?

The long story of why I haven’t been posting may unfold by and by, but suffice it here to say the reasons have been more about family than about books and pine trees. At least I’ve read some fine works in the interim. Here are a few reviews of favorite titles, written for a fine online publication, The Washington Independent Review of Books, which endeavors to make sure there are still book reviews even as more and more traditional journals stop publishing them.

Our Once and Future Planet: Restoring the World in the Climate Change Century, by Paddy Woodruff (University of Chicago Press, 2013). In engaging and spirited prose, [author Paddy Woodruff] deploys his finest investigative skills to address the book’s central question: “how successfully can we restore degraded ecosystems, and our own damaged relationship to the environment?”

Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein—Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe, by Mario Livio (Simon & Schuster, 2013). By examining these towering scientists through the high-powered lens of their worst lapses, Livio illuminates not just the individuals but also the vital process of discovery.

Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World, by William Leach (Pantheon Books, 2013). . . . . a literary cabinet of wonders packed with scientific discoveries, historic artifacts, and artistic revelations to delight scholarly and casual readers alike. What have you been reading?

Swampbikers Journal

You’d think chocolate croissants would be incentive enough, but recently my children balked at our Sunday ritual of walking to the farmers’ market. Luckily, it turned out they were irked not by the destination but the pace. Family harmony was restored the next week by disentangling bikes from the jumbled garage and setting out as usual.

Laden with melons, apples, and sweet corn, we parents lagged behind on the return trip, only able to watch from afar as my daughter swerved off the path and crashed to the ground. Sarah laughingly explained, “I swerved to avoid a rock—with a tail!” Her swift self-sacrifice preserved the young life of a quarter-sized snapping turtle. A second hatchling was soon spotted crawling down the hill toward a stream, and we sat on the grass to watch their progress—and make sure no other bikers ground them into the tarmac.

I was thinking: the only thing that could make the discovery more fun would be more kids to share it with. Then down the path came a mom and two small girls. “Did you find a baby turtle?” the mom called. One child cradled a cardboard box, temporary quarters for another fiesty reptile. The mom turned out to be a talented nature photographer, Sharon Shomette, who had found the snapper snippet while out walking her dog and returned home for her camera (and pj-clad daughters). This shot catches the youngster's attitude perfectly.

Sharon’s confidence & enthusiasm instantly convinced us that she should lead our expedition. As she scrambled down a muddy bank to photograph the captive's release, I turned to my forte—-thinking of books that could enrich our experience. Quick as a shutter release, I thought of David M. Carroll, author of three wetlands natural history books known affectionately as the “wet sneaker trilogy.” If you never considered snappers as beautiful creatures, you’ll rethink your position after reading Carroll’s passionate ode to all things chelonian, Swampwalker's Journal. Carroll’s paintings and sketches of turtles and their boggy abodes also grace the books, further reflecting the intimacy of his connection to the New Hampshire marsh where he has studied snapping, spotted, and painted turtles for decades.


As I watched my kids delighting in sunshine, mud, and baby snappers with smiling neighbors, I wished they could experience a friendship like Carroll describes in his memoir, Self-Portrait with Turtles. Two pre-teens roaming free in a red-maple swamp, David & friend learned enough about cattails and carapace patterns in summer to sustain them through the dark classroom days of fall. Even when exploring on his own, young David remained connected to the girl who shared his outdoor adventures. Finding a yellow spotted turtle, he questions his impulse to capture it for his friend. I did not collect turtles or give them away, remembers Carroll, “But as I held this exquisite little one, I saw it as a living jewel she could keep for a time.” I trust that our morning with the snappers will be remembered as that same kind of gift, made less fleeting by Sharon’s fine photos, and more nourishing to the soul than the flakiest croissant.