Braiding Sweetgrass evaluation

Sarah Kelley

ENGL 102-037

2/14/18

In the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer the focus of the book is nature and how people interact with it and how humans treat nature and look at it. She really explains her connection to nature and how she teaches her class about the environment. She does this through personal experiences and she also tells creation stories.

I think that the books strength was how it was written she would connect it back to her childhood and pass a lot when talking about the classroom and that made her argument stronger. I think that the creation stories she told was a good way to keep readers interested in the story and also make the reader think about how nature came to be. One quote that I think does a good job describing the purpose of the story is one from the chapter “The gift of Strawberries”. This chapter talks about her connection with nature and how it is a gift when she takes from the earth. Kimmerer said “What I mean of course is that our human relationship with strawberries is transformed by our choice of perspective. It is human perception that makes the world a gift (30)”. What she is trying to sat is that us humans get to determine how we see the world and we should see it as a gift because of all it gives to us.

I would recommend this book to people it was very informative and tell personal story made the book more interesting. If a person wants to learn about nature and how they can connect to it more this book is great for that. It also good for anyone how already enjoys nature to get a better understanding. This book was really good and making me personally appreciate nature more than I did before and be thankful for what it gives as and also give back to nature as well.