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mycatnorbert's review
The editing of this book is atrocious. There are frequent grammatical errors, repeated sentences, poor/awkward phrasing, and invented words. I really wanted to like this book, and had been looking forward to a book along the lines of "Braiding Sweetgrass." Unfortunately, this book seems to be written by someone who does not count writing among their communicative strengths.
bernstein_lexi's review against another edition
Important topics, but the title is misleading and it's hard to finish a book when it's written as if you're being yelled at. I wanted to learn, and instead felt like shit.
erinlcrane's review
3.0
I’ve had a stretch of nonfiction books that sound like they are one thing and then present me with something very different, so add this to the list. I thought I would be reading about Indigenous science, Indigenous ways of sustainably supporting humans. What I got was a LOT about the problems for Indigenous people with the legacy of what Hernandez labels settler colonialism.
The perspective was good, and I learned some important things. For example, the creation of our national parks has often meant the displacement of Indigenous people. I was both shocked and not shocked to read that.
One chapter that is a good example of the mismatch of expectations to what I got from the book is Tierra Madre. This chapter is about collectives of Indigenous women who create traditional clothing. There was some information about how the details of clothing show the significance of nature and certain plants to Indigenous culture and spirituality. That was interesting, but I had been hoping to hear something about what these garments are made of and how those natural resources are managed differently from the West.
Unfortunately there’s also a lot of repetition, almost word for word, of specific information. I also found the language often more simplistic than I would like, but Hernandez does say late in the book she’s trying to write an accessible work on the topic.
I still learned some things and gained the Indigenous perspective of Central America, which I didn’t realize I was getting.
The perspective was good, and I learned some important things. For example, the creation of our national parks has often meant the displacement of Indigenous people. I was both shocked and not shocked to read that.
One chapter that is a good example of the mismatch of expectations to what I got from the book is Tierra Madre. This chapter is about collectives of Indigenous women who create traditional clothing. There was some information about how the details of clothing show the significance of nature and certain plants to Indigenous culture and spirituality. That was interesting, but I had been hoping to hear something about what these garments are made of and how those natural resources are managed differently from the West.
Unfortunately there’s also a lot of repetition, almost word for word, of specific information. I also found the language often more simplistic than I would like, but Hernandez does say late in the book she’s trying to write an accessible work on the topic.
I still learned some things and gained the Indigenous perspective of Central America, which I didn’t realize I was getting.