Have you ever read a book that made you incredibly sad while still filling you with hope? A book that was knowledgeable and beautiful and made you want to go outside and bury your fingers in the dirt? That’s what Braiding Sweetgrass is to me. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a Potawotami botanist and professor at SUNY’s school of Environmental Science and Forestry. This nonfiction book combines scientific knowledge of agriculture with Native practices and wisdom, but it is so much more than that. Throughout the book Kimmerer weaves in Native myths, sharing stories about Turtle Island and Skywoman, cautionary fables about the Wendigo, and the spiritual and medical importance of sweetgrass. She discusses current environmental issues like the superfund site at Onondaga Lake, which will make you furious the longer she goes into what capitalism and industry did to the place. And she discusses her own life, raising two daughters on her own and working with her sister to learn the Potawotami language.
Kimmerer’s essays cover a variety of topics, and integrate Native culture and her own lived experience into the discussion of botany and ecology. While discussing basket weaving, you learn more about the environmental needs of the trees the Pigeon family of basket weavers relies upon, and then the process of making the baskets themselves. A Three Sisters garden leads to a communal feast, but also discusses colonialism and the unwillingness of European settlers to acknowledge Native agricultural practices. The process of clearing a pond of algae becomes a retrospective on motherhood. Everything is personal, and beautiful.
If you’ve struggled with nonfiction, Braiding Sweetgrass is a good entry point. Kimmerer’s essays are intimate while still being incredibly informative, and the array of topics will keep you interested throughout. I’d additionally recommend the audiobook, narrated by the author, who has a lovely speaking voice and is an enthralling storyteller. This is one of my favorite books so far this year, and I will probably go buy a physical copy just so I can re-read portions whenever I want.
