Audiobook Review: Braiding Sweetgrass

Title: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Read By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Release Date: June 16, 2016
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Robin Wall Kimmerer brings together her training as a botanist and her experiences as a member of the Citizen Patowatomi Nation, teacher, and mother in Braiding Sweetgrass. She brings together different ways of gaining and sharing knowledge, and discusses the importance of the importance of these methods in healing the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world- and in turn healing the natural world itself.

Out of Ten: 9/10

Review at a Glance: A wonderful and thought-provoking blend of personal stories and botanical knowledge, with a message about both hurt and healing (and how ways of knowing contribute to both), showed off to it's best advantage when read by the author.


Review: First things first, I really, really recommend picking this one up. Second things second, ideally pick up the audiobook. It's read by the author and I think it makes it resonate more (at least it did for me). 

This was my first book of the year and I just haven't posted a review because I was still processing it, I think? (Or because I'm not fabulous at timely reviews. Take your pick of an explanation. Anyway.) It was such a good way to start out the year! It's thoughtful, and hopeful, without glossing over the way the Indigenous people of North America have been treated over the past few... centuries (yeah... it's real bad). It likewise doesn't sugarcoat the amount of damage that humans have done to the planet on which we live, presenting it as, at least in part, a result of a broken relationship between humans and land.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Patowatomi Nation (an Indigenous group whose traditional territory surrounds the Great Lakes), a scientist, and environmentalist. She presents a really valuable viewpoint on knowledge. Science (especially environmental science) has had a history of being very Western, not valuing traditional knowledge, just because it isn't conveyed in a familiar way (or because it was coming from people that scientists felt couldn't possibly know things because... racism). I've taken courses that actually heavily feature similar ideas, but they was a different experience from reading this book. 

Through a number of personal stories and examples, Braiding Sweetgrass explores human relationships with the land and the lives of everyone living on it, how knowledge is gained and shared, and whether how repairing the relationship between humans and the world can help both. 

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a beautiful writer, and a wonderful reader. She shares personal stories about her own experiences and the experiences of her family, Indigenous practices, and the science surrounding many natural phenomena, with equal clarity. It's a pretty great author who makes science work in an accessible way. I've experienced many (many, many) science writers who don't manage it. The combination of human stories, history, and botany also makes it a more holistic perspective on the environment and resource management; especially with the emphasis on incorporating long-disregarded perspectives and healing. 

While her views and mine are not identical (they can't be, we have had two different lived experiences and cultural backgrounds) they are aligned, I think, and her insights definitely helped me with getting more perspective. For those who don't know, I actually have a degree in environmental science, which I finished and then automatically switched to a different degree because... environmental problems are overwhelming, and I was exhausted. I figured that studying dinosaurs would be funner and easier than confronting the uphill battle that is getting anything done in resource management. But in the past few months, and especially since listening to Braiding Sweetgrass, I've been drifting back to environmental science, with substantially more hope, and I think, more perspective than before. So I'm really grateful to Dr. Kimmerer for sharing this book with the world on a personal level, because it means that I got to read it, and I think I really needed to. 

Overall, I really recommend picking this one up (the audiobook, if you possibly can). It was a fantastic book to start the year with and I'm glad that I picked it up when I did!