A Gentle Rebellion, where some dirt will fly

Here’s a book that we wish we could purchase many, many copies of, allowing its fun lessons to spread far and wide. How to Grow a School Garden offers a step-by-step guide for creating an outdoor classroom, connecting kids to the simple lessons of where food comes from, and the always surprising world of nature nearby.

As the authors Arden Buckin-Sporer and Rachel Kathleen Pringle write: “Enriching a school on so many different levels, a garden program is a gentle rebellion of sorts — an antidote to the sour note of diminishing resources.” Acknowledging this era of extremely tight school budgets, we should add that this innovative book also mounts a gentle rebellion against the sour notes of nature-deficit disorder and rising childhood obesity.

Lastly, we LOVE how level-headed and down-to-earth this book is:

“We suggest that all notions of aesthetic fussiness and perfection be released, as they have no place in a school garden. Rows of carrots will be imperfect, wheelbarrows will tip, and dirt will fly. Plant enough to share with the inevitable critters that will take up residence (a little tolerance is a good thing)….Ask the students to paint the signs and label the beds; the more kid-centered your school garden is, the more the students will feel like kings in their kingdom. The overall appearance of the school garden should have a rambunctious, robust kind of beauty.“

And here’s a very fun, and inspiring, film clip about the great work of Sprout City Farms and the Denver Green School!

If you would like to learn more about this community-building rebellion, the Land Library can enthusiastically recommend the following books from our Waterton Canyon Kids Library:

The Learning Garden: Ecology, Teaching, and Transformation by Veronica Gaylie, The Family Kitchen Garden: How to Plant, Grow, and Cook Together by Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner, and Annette Wendland, Gardening with Children by Monika Hanneman (from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s book series)

Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea by Alice Waters, Seedfolks, Paul Fleischman’s classic young adult novel on the power of community gardens, Wildlife Gardening: How to Bring Birds and Bugs to your Backyard by Martyn Cox

OK, it’s obvious by now that we love the creativity and fun of these books. Here’s a forthcoming title that the Land Library has on order, and that we’ll be very excited to see:

And for related book ideas, you may want to link-back to earlier Land Library posts:

– Child’s Play, Bush Houses & More

– The Green Hour

– To Make the World My Own

– The Insect Man

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Ernest Thompson Seton: A World Alive

The Rocky Mountain Land Series kicks off its summer season this coming Saturday as author David L. Witt discusses his new book Ernest Thompson Seton: The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist — the first biography of this legendary naturalist in many years. Seton (1860-1946) was one of America’s most popular authors and lecturers in the early 1900′s. He wrote over 40 books, many of which are in print to this day, including Wild Animals I Have Known, cited by both Rudyard Kipling and David Attenborough for its early influence on their lives.

Ernest Thompson Seton was also one of the most important and technically accomplished wildlife illustrators of his time, and his concepts for bird identification influenced the likes of Roger Tory Peterson and others.

David L. Witt tells a fascinating story of a remarkable and complex life. His new book is also a joy to look through, with hundreds of historic photographs, and page after page of Seton’s artwork and illustrations. Learn much, much more at this Saturday’s Rocky Mountain Land Series program (details below)!

Three by Seton: The Biography of a Grizzly, Lives of the Hunted, Art Anatomy of Animals

Field Journal of Ernest Thompson Seton, Volume 6, featuring a watercolor of a sandpiper, and an ink sketch of elk horns.

Ernest Thompson Seton’s The Sleeping Wolf: “Seton wrote that the work took a full month at several hours per day, a claim easily believed by the detail he captured. Everything we might consider noble and beautiful about a wild animal comes through in this painting. The setting is so beautiful that we feel as if we have come upon this animal in a state of total peace in a remote woodland.” — David L. Witt

Sharp-shinned Hawk, Ernest Thompson Seton’s first known painting, 1876.

Please join us as the Rocky Mountain Land Series presents:

David L. Witt, author of Ernest Thompson Seton: The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist

WHEN: Saturday, June 26th, 2pm

WHERE: at the Tattered Cover’s LoDo Store (16th & Wynkoop in lower downtown Denver)

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Sir David on Ernest Thompson Seton

“I was given a copy of Wild Animals I Have Known when I was eight. I still have it. It was the most precious book of my childhood. I knew very well that the man who wrote it understood the animals he was writing about with an intimacy, perception, and sympathy that was not equaled by any other author that I had read. And I had already read a lot. It made a great difference to me that he was not only a naturalist and a writer of great power, but also an artist. That could not be said of any of the other authors whose books were on my shelf. These were the portraits of the actual animals described in the text — Raggylug, Lobo, and Wully. They were not pictures dreamed up by someone who had never met them. The footprints that ran up the margins — especially the footprints — were almost the real thing, drawn by an expert tracker who knew his way around the prairies. I yearned to go with him so that I could learn something of what he knew.” — Sir David Attenborough, from his foreword to Ernest Thompson Seton: The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist by David L. Witt

Thanks to Sir David Attenborough for “introducing” this Saturday’s Rocky Mountain Land Series program! Please join us for this free event, as author David L. Witt discusses his new biography of Ernest Thompson Seton — a beautifully produced book, full of insights into Seton’s remarkable career, with page after page of his artwork and illustrations. More on David L. Witt’s new book in a later post!

Rocky Mountain Land Series presents David L. Witt, author of Ernest Thompson Seton: The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist

WHEN: Saturday, June 26th, 2pm

WHERE: at the Tattered Cover’s LoDo Store (16th & Wynkoop in lower downtown Denver)

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The 90% Solution

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.” — Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises and author of Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail

Ninety percent of the world’s population has little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted. Nearly half lack regular access to food, clean water, or shelter. Cynthia Smith’s Design for the Other 90% explores the growing movement among architects, designers and engineers to design low-tech, low-cost solutions for the vast majority of people across the planet.

This extremely pragmatic, and very inspirational book highlights just a few design remedies gathered across the globe, such as: drip-irrigation systems, freight-carrying bicycles, bamboo treadle pumps for irrigation (pictured above), pot-in-pot coolers (which use evaporative cooling to keep food from spoiling), and portable water filters (featured on the cover of Design for the Other 90%).

We hope to revisit this subject many times over the next few months, but for now, the Land Library can recommend (from the heart and soul of its collection) the following related titles:

Building Without Borders: Sustainable Construction for the Global Village, edited by Joseph Kennedy, Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises, edited by Kate Stohr & Cameron Sinclair, The Barefoot Architect: A Handbook for Green Building by Johan van Lengen

Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean & Timothy Hursley, Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail by Paul Polak, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change by Victor Papanek

And returning for a moment to Design for the Other 90%, we close on a very fun and elegant note:

THE PROBLEM: Millions of people live miles from clean water. The extreme weight of water limits how much water a family can have, and takes a heavy toll on the water-carrier’s neck, back and joints.

THE SOLUTION: The Q Drum, a durable container designed to roll easily:

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The Dipper & The Best Book Series We Know

“Among all the countless waterfalls I have met in the course of ten years’ exploration in the Sierra, whether among the icy peaks, or warm foothills, or in the profound yosemitic canons…not one was found without its Ouzel. No canon is too cold for this bird, none too lonely, provided it be rich in falling water. Find a fall, or cascade, or rushing rapid, anywhere upon a clear stream, and there you will surely find its complementary Ouzel, flitting about in the spray, diving in foaming eddies, whirling like a leaf among beaten foam-bells…“ — John Muir

Today, Muir’s Ouzel is more commonly called a Dipper. Their remarkable swimming and diving abilities have long attracted wonder. For many, the fascination of the Dipper’s life history is only added to by their preferred habitat of fast-flowing alpine streams, where they dip below the surface, foraging for caddis and mayfly nymphs. This bird is truly more of water than sky.

The Dippers, by Stephanie Tyler and Stephen Ormerod provides us with as complete a natural history of this unique bird as you can find. This comprehensive volume is also part of a classic series that we have come to admire more and more over the years. Each volume of the Poyser Bird Series is a true budget-buster, but definitely worth it. The Poyser books form the heart and soul of our ornithology collection. Here’s just a few from the Land Library’s shelves:

The Raven by Derek Ratcliffe, The Nuthatches by Erik Matthysen, Weather and Bird Behavior by Norman Elkins, The Magpies: The Ecology and Behavior of Black-billed and Yellow-billed Magpies by Tim Birkhead, The Barn Swallow by Angela Turner

A series-within-a-series, the Poyser books also include over a dozen volumes on raptors, including the following:

The Gyrfalcon by Richard Sale & Eugene Potopov, The Goshawk by Robert Kenward, Raptors of the World by James Ferguson-Lees & David A. Christie, The Kestrel by Andrew Village, The Golden Eagle by Jeff Watson

Here’s hoping the Land Library continues to grow its collection of Poyser books to share with naturalists for years and years to come. And we also hope your summer’s rambles uncovers a Dipper or two!

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The Power of Books & the Biblioburros of Columbia

The latest addition to our Waterton Canyon Kids Library is Jeanette Winter’s Biblioburro: A True Story from Columbia, a picture book about one man’s never-say-never passion for sharing stories and books. Jeanette Winter has written and illustrated many books for children based on true-life stories, including Wangari’s Trees of Peace, and The Librarian of Basra. Here’s what she has to say about her latest book:

“Biblioburro is based on the true story of Luis Soriana, who lives in La Gloria, a remote town in northern Columbia. An avid reader, Luis understood the transformative power of reading because of his experiences as a schoolteacher. He wanted to share his collection of books with the children and adults in the isolated villages in the distant hills, where books were scarce. Most houses had none.

Luis and his two burros began bringing books to the villages in 2000. He started with a collection of 70 books that has grown to over 4,800, mostly from donations. Now the Biblioburro travels to the hills every weekend. Three hundred people, more or less, look forward to borrowing the books Luis brings.

A small corner of the world is enriched.” — Jeanette Winter

People around here love stories. I’m trying to keep that spirit alive in my own way. — Luis Soriana

And there’s more great photos on the Biblioburro blogspot!

Being the book-people (book-nuts?) that we are, we especially love the following three titles from our Waterton Canyon Kids Library — each one affirms the power and value of books across the world:

Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky by Kathi Appelt & Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer, My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World by Margriet Ruurs, The Library Book: The Story of Libraries from Camels to Computers by Maureen Sawa & Bill Slavin

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The Power of Books & the Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

This was one of the most surprising, memorable, and inspirational books we’ve read in the past year. William Kamkwamba’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is many books in one. Kamkwamba gives us a vivid tale of a child’s growing up in the African nation of Malawi. The African landscape is an important character throughout this story, as is Malawi’s corrupt government, and the drought and famine that brought William’s family to their knees.

Forced to leave school due to his family’s dire circumstances, William discovered a tiny volunteer-run library, and soon came across two books: Junior Integrated Science and Explaining Physics. Both of these books laid the groundwork for an unexpected find one day — one of those serendipitous encounters that libraries are so very, very good at — especially when matched with a curious mind like William Kamkwamba’s:

“…I squatted down to grab one of the dictionaries, and when I did, I noticed a book I’d never seen, pushed into the shelf and slightly concealed. What is this? I thought. Pulling it out, I saw it was an American textbook called Using Energy, and this book has since changed my life. The cover featured a long row of windmills — though at that time I had no idea what a windmill was.”

This book provided William Kamkwamba several ah-ha! moments over the next few days, chief among them, how such knowledge might help his family, and at the same time, unleash his best dreams for a future ahead:

“With a windmill we’d finally release ourselves from the troubles of darkness and hunger. In Malawi, the wind was one of the few consistent things given to us by God, blowing in the treetops day and night. A windmill meant more than just power, it was freedom.”

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a wonderful story, full of grit, ingenuity and hope! Please check out the following 3 minute video clip. Among other great images, you’ll see William Kamkwamba proudly holding up the library book that started it all!

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Jomon Reflections

A review by Anita Sullivan from Writing Nature 2010:

Jomon Reflections: Forager Life and Culture in the Prehistoric Japanese Archipelago by Tatsuo Kobayashi

It might be hard to justify as a “must read,” a book on prehistoric Japanese society, even one that lasted over 10,000 years. But I would put this book into that rare class of writings in which the author is able to recognize important patterns within a specialized scientific field, to articulate these patterns clearly, and to connect them to much larger, vital human concerns. What Kobayashi has done is to document the development of the symbolic and artistic mind, as evidenced in the oldest pottery tradition in the world. We can observe humans developing their “practical art” over thousands of years in the relative absence of the huge environmental and social disruptions that have shaped and often distorted daily life in so many other societies. Besides which, the pots themselves are achingly gorgeous.

Thanks to Anita Sullivan for highlighting a book we otherwise would have missed. Anita is definitely on to something with this recommendation. Coincidentally (?), two of the Land Library’s recent acquisitions share common themes with Jomon Reflections:

Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan by Azby Brown, A Different Kind of Luxury: Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance by Andy Couturier

For more book recommendations (plus a whole lot more) take a look at Writing Nature 2010!

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The Blue Plateau

A review by Carolyn Servid, from Writing Nature 2010

The Blue Plateau: An Australian Pastoral by Mark Tredinnick

This book is an exquisitely crafted tapestry of an extraordinary landscape and a few dozen characters who are shaped by it. The Australian edition’s subtitle, A Landscape Memoir, is more telling. Mark Tredinnick has evocatively captured a place, its geological history, and its profound role in human lives rooted in it. Australia’s Blue Plateau was Tredinnick’s home at a significant time in his life. The place itself commands his respect and love, and both of those deepen as he comes to know the plateau, its steep valleys and its sometimes-trickling-sometimes-raging rivers through the eyes and lives and stories of the book’s cast of characters: generations of long-time settlers who wear the landscape like their own clothes; others learning and making their way; still others lost to the country’s wildness. Most striking is Tredinnick’s lyrical prose — not only his painterly descriptions and his telling of stories, but his refections on the language of landscape, how it can shape our hearts, our very being.

Thanks to Carolyn Servid for steering us to a beautifully written study of landscape from down under. The Land Library can also recommend these well-crafted works by Mark Tredinnick:

The Land’s Wild Music: Encounters with Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Terry Tempest Williams, and James Galvin, A Place on Earth: An Anthology of Nature Writing from North America and Australia, plus Writing Well: The Essential Guide (not pictured).

For more book recommendations (plus a whole lot more), take a look at Writing Nature 2010!

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Writing Nature 2010

Writing Nature 2010 has just been published on line. This 36-page collection of art, essays, poetry, book reviews & recommendations is produced annually by members of the Glenbrook, Crestone, Blue River, and Rocky Mountain Land Library communities — a loose coalition of artists, writers, naturalists, and lovers of the land.

Founded in 1991, Writing Nature was for many years guided and edited by J. Parker Huber. This year’s edition was expertly edited by Kathleen Dean Moore and Charles Goodrich of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature & the Written Word at Oregon State University. And many thanks to Sherrie York for providing a wonderful cover for Writing Nature 2010. We hope you enjoy it!

Please click on the Writing Nature 2010 link, and to view last year’s edition, you can click on Writing Nature 2009.

Feel free to spread these issues of Writing Nature far and wide!

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