Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

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

39 reviews

parasolcrafter's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

5.0

this really is one of those books someone like me cant really add anything to; all i can say is that its an INCREDIBLE book that i think almost everyone should read.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Genocide, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Grief, Death, and Racism

betag1013's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Child death, Animal death, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Genocide, Xenophobia, and War

ashwaar's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

Braiding Sweetgrass is a hefty book packed with stories, anecdotes and emotions. Throughout its pages, Kimmerer takes us along as she surveys mountainsides, harvests roots, saves reptiles from becoming roadkill, and watches her girls grow up and leave home. She discusses the delicate intersection of loving the planet whilst studying it and concludes that you cannot understand the environment if you don't feel for it.

The book has its basis in science, but Kimmerer explains ecological processes so deftly and poetically that it's easy to take in. Even if you don't understand everything, the language and writing style clearly shows her love and respect for the topic. The chapters range in length and topic, but a few of my favourites include the erasure of indigenous languages, stories of tapping maple syrup trees, and rituals performed in thanks for the land.

The book acknowledges and discusses the role of indigenous knowledge in scientific understanding of the Earth and how to live in balance with our land. After reading this, I felt more compelled to pause when hiking to accept the landscapes around me and feel gratitude for them. Braiding Sweetgrass is a non-fiction book I'd recommend to almost everyone as essential reading.

Rating: 4.5/5

Read more on Wordpress at Bookmarked by Ash: https://book990337086.wordpress.com/

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, and Animal death

Moderate: Death and Racism

displacedcactus's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

This book is a modern classic, so I don't really know what I can say in a review that hasn't already been said! I really enjoyed how Kimmerer combines her knowledge as a biologist/conservationist and her knowledge as an Indigenous woman. There were a lot of highs and lows in this book, and like any book about the environment, I swung between hope and despair.

I could have done without the whiff of gender essentialism, with men as fire keepers and women as water bearers, and motherhood as one of the essential stages of a woman's life. But other than that one small complaint, this book was awesome.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Animal death, and Death

The racism is all in discussions of the history of how America has treated our Indigenous people, especially with regards to residential schools, reservations, the Trail of Tears, etc.

madzie's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

A very insightful and significant book. Kimmerer offers a lot of insights into plants, cultures, and our modern world, helping readers to examine the world they live in every day. Kimmerer has such a profound voice in her writing that is wonderful to read. She has wonderful, emotion-provoking descriptions throughout the novel that makes you truly feel these lessons. Toward the middle of the book, I felt like there was a lag in the flow of information where parts seemed not to fit together as well as in the beginning and end. Fundamentally, this is a well-written and important book that I would highly suggest to others.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, Animal death, Vomit, and Colonisation

Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Genocide, and Death

Minor: Cannibalism

This book goes into graphic depth about climate change and the death of nature and our planet.

karcitis's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Colonisation, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, and Xenophobia

Minor: Vomit and Cannibalism

purplepenning's review against another edition

hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Sexism

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

dhiyanah's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

There's a profound heaviness we feel about our collective wounds and responsibilities in how the planet is changing, suffering, and asking for help during these times. I'm grateful this book doesn't shy away from that, giving language to the overwhelm we're navigating, tracing it back to our ruptured connection with land and the patterns upheld to keep us in constant states of struggle, survival, and forgetfulness.

By sharing her lived experiences in reclaiming, remembering, and honoring practices kept alive by her own and other indigenous lineages (US-based), the author invites us to reflect on our own capacities and efforts of being in right relationship with the living world. In this book, I found reflections of how my own struggles of unbelonging and loneliness are linked to a sense of feeling orphaned from land, from wider community. I found deep queries and burning desires within me - not having much framework for being local to anywhere - to embody a more reciprocal and grounded approach to the natural world, to this planet who still feeds and tends to us through all this chaos. 

For this and so much more, I feel this is a crucial read to help situate and cultivate hope, courage, and determination within as we journey through these giant waves of grief and renewal with our Mother Earth.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, and Genocide

Moderate: Racism and Grief

Minor: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, and Violence

waybeyondblue's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Colonisation, and Death

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cultural appropriation, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Fire/Fire injury

kaimetcalfe's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Grief, Animal death, and Colonisation

Moderate: Chronic illness, Alcoholism, Forced institutionalization, Animal cruelty, Death, Blood, and Colonisation