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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Robin Wall Kimmerer
Published: 2013
Genre: Nature Writing, Nonfiction, Indigenous Storytelling
Awards: 2014 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award

If you’re looking for a book to captivate and change your view of the world, look no further. Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, seamlessly blends scientific knowledge and indigenous teachings together. She embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).

This book genuinely changed my own perspectives on the natural world. Since reading this, I will still think of snippets of Kimmerer’s text as I drive through a wooded area or go for a walk around my neighborhood. Her words have stuck with me in a lasting way that very few other authors have been able to achieve. I can not recommend this book more highly, and firmly believe it is one that everyone should read at some point in their lives!