Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
The USFWS Conservation Library is excited to announce our fall book selection, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Kimmerer is a State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Teaching Professor, indigenous scientist, writer, and mother who shares with us lessons from nature, like the striking beauty of asters and goldenrods, strawberries, pecan and maple trees, and sweetgrass. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Los Angeles Times.
Braiding Sweetgrass was voted a New York Times Bestseller and the “Best Essay Collection of the Decade” by Literary Hub, as well as a Reading Recommendation for Fall from Food Tank. Intertwining of science, spirit, and story, Kimmerer offers this beautiful “braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world” as she shares on her background of being both a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion “that plants and animals are our oldest teachers.” Her lens on the natural world is one full of gratitude, reciprocity, and a widened ecological consciousness to give back and be kind to the earth.
For FWS employees, you can access an eBook of Braiding Sweetgrass via this link. Please log in via VPN or access while on the network to authenticate. FWS employees may also email megan_burdi@fws.gov to borrow a print copy as available. For the general public, Braiding Sweetgrass can be found at your local library or book store.
On Tuesday, November 16th at 3 PM ET, we are hosting a Book Discussion via Zoom open to all. There will also be a list of discussion questions posted soon if you’d like to go through those as you read.
Brought to you by the USFWS Conservation Library, America’s Wild Read is a virtual book club where we aim to inspire you to connect with the outdoors and nature through literature. We hope you will read along with us as we feature various conservation books every quarter — contemporary, traditional, new, and classic.
