Inside Scoop: Gearing Up For Summer

So we’re coming up on the first long holiday weekend of the season. For me that means I have one extra day with my foster kiddos,  a panic inducing thought because I’m taking care of three male teens – 16, 17 and 18. Yikes. What the heck does a middle-aged woman like me do to keep these guys entertained? The solution can be found within my badly worded question, because “entertaining” them should really not be my goal. Better for me to ask: what can I set up that will allow them to entertain themselves? Whew! That sounds much more do-able. And fun.

For all you parents, guardians, nannies, aunties, uncles and grandparents out there looking ahead to a summer of endless days filled with sun-charged children, the Handy Dad series has a new book to the rescue.  Todd Davis, TV host and extreme sports athlete, has written a book that we can all use to get our kids out of the house and into some real world adventures. Handy Dad in the Great Outdoors: More Than 30 Super-cool Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids, gives the low-down on everything from choosing the best campsite to geo-caching, including making daisy chains and playing flashlight tag.

Many of these activities can be done in the backyard or local park, and the detailed instructions and full color photos will make just about everybody feel capable of leading the summer fun. And remember: it’s not your job as elder to make their fun, or have their fun for them, but to guide them so they can make their own fun. Don’t forget to check out other books filled with exciting projects for the whole family:

Handy Dad: 25 Awesome Projects for Dads and Kids, by Todd Davis; Be the Coolest Dad on the Block: All of the Tricks, Games, Puzzles and Jokes You Need to Impress Your Kids, by Simon Rose; The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science: 64 Daring Experiments for Young Scientists, by Sean Connolly; Tree Houses and Other Cool Stuff: 50 Projects You Can Build, by David Stiles. And lastly, a book to help you conquer those parenting fears that keep you and your kids from living full-out: Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) by Lenore Skenazy. — Erin

Off the Shelf: Arm Chair Gardening with Timber Press

It’s chilly, it’s rainy and the days are still too short.  The month of March can be a difficult one for a gardener.   Planting primroses or pansies will help.  And the sight of spring bulbs sprouting can cheer you up too.  But if your gardening soul needs more soothing, check out the amazing collection of gardening books from Timber Press.  They are a local publisher that focuses on “gardening, ornamental and edible horticulture, garden design, sustainability, natural history, and the Pacific Northwest”.   Here are just a few titles available at Cedar Mill Community Library.  Be sure and visit their website at www. timberpress.com. 

 

The Edible Front Yard: The Mow-Less, Grow-More Plan for a Beautiful, Bountiful Garden by Ivette Soler

High-Impact, Low-Carbon Gardening: 1001 Ways to Garden Sustainably by Alice Bowe

Bloom’s Best Perennials and Grasses: Expert Plant Choices and Dramatic Combinations for Year-Round Gardens by Adrian Bloom

The Nonstop Garden: A Step-By-Step Guide to Smart Plant Choices and Four Season Design by Stephanie Cohen

Encyclopedia of Northwest Native Plants for Gardens and Landscapes by Kathleen A. Robson

Garden to Vase: Growing and Using Your Own Cut Flowers by Linda Beutler

       

Ginny W., Youth Services

Off the Shelf: The Wild Life

It’s no secret to those that know me that I love good nature writing.  From reflective domestic essays like those of Annie Dillard, or Jane Goodall’s experiences with the chimps of Gombe, I’m a sucker for stories of people who find the wild life somewhere out there.  Here are a few of my favorite books by or about individuals who grab environmentalism by the horns, diving in with a take-no-prisoners approach to protecting the world’s greatest resource:  the beauty of life.

Gorillas in the Mist: Dianne Fossey spent 18 years in the jungles of Rwanda studying mountain gorillas, and was never for a minute afraid to get her hands dirty.  Whether she was ducking bullets or digging through gorilla feces, Fossey had anything but a boring career.  The jungle used up research assistants and graduate students like tissue paper as her team faced territorial gorillas, stumbling elephants, poacher traps, and deadly terrain on a daily basis.  Still, she persevered until her death, gathering data on the Rwandan mountain gorilla families and decrying tourism and the animal trade in her famous book.  Fossey will always be one of my heroes—a person who saved baby gorillas from poachers and literally took a machete to the animal trade in Africa.         

Desert Solitaire:  It’s not always the protection of animals that get us up in arms.  Edward Abbey’s memoirs of his years as a ranger in Arches National Park, Utah are like the barking of a rabid dog foaming at the industrial world and its insufferable attacks on the natural world.  Abbey holds nothing back in his vicious tirade on tourism, industrialization, even taxonomy.  His archaic views are thrown up against the backdrop of the scorching desert sun, and a world so far removed from man that it can be nothing but wildness—the natural world as it was meant to be—no easy place for man to live, but rewarding, powerful, and worth protecting in the worst of ways.     

The Tiger:  One of my favorite books of all time, John Vaillant’s story of the Russian Far East and the hunt of a man-eating tiger brings out the tragic complexities of conservationism in region where poaching is one of the only profitable occupations for the dwindling inhabitants.  The narrative follows Trush, the man whose job it is to stop illegal hunting, eliminate the deadly tiger, and bring environmental justice down on the lands.  Trush is the Bruce Willis of the natural world, taking on poachers and illegal traders with shotguns and tear gas.  He faces the daunting task of protecting the tigers from the people and the people from the tigers a world away from civilization.

-Rob

Blurbs from the Branch: A Natural Storyteller

Resident BBC Naturalist, David Attenborough, has had an amazing career. His latest TV series, Frozen Planets, is set to be released stateside early next year. It features the 84 year old Attenborough, as he travels to Antartica and the North Pole. The footage looks amazing, but until then there’s Life Stories, a collection of  BBC Radio 4 episodes, about nature’s oddities. Attenborough is so knowledgeable and excited to have the opportunity to explain what so few people have a chance to observe, that you don’t even miss the visuals that usually go with this type of programming. If you’re one to appreciate random fun facts or enjoy hearing the backstory of failed technology, harsh weather and breaking through language barriers, you’ll enjoy Life Stories. I think it would be great for a longer car ride with older kids interested in animals, science or travelling.

The Inside Scoop: Stories by Global Activists

I have been reading Anodea Judith’s book Waking the Global Heart: Humanity’s Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love, this week. It is a thoroughly original look at human/cultural evolution that blends history, mythology, psychology and chakra energy systems to explain the collapse of our institutions and material world, and provide insight for developing a new story for humanity that is life-affirming. She argues that since humans are now capable of influencing the trajectory of evolution, we are faced with a tremendous responsibility which is calling forth a maturity of the heart so that each of us can choose how, or whether, to take part in the creation of a more livable world.

Many people are already engaged in creating a more livable world and their stories are being told more, and more. While each of these stories centers on personal experience with human or environmental misery, I offer them up as hopeful antidote to the doom and gloom so prevalent these days, because of the courage, creativity and action they portray.  May you too find ways to share your concern and your gifts with the global community

 More than good intentions: how a new economics is helping to solve global poverty, by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel.

 And still peace did not come: a memoir of reconciliation, by Agnes Kamara-Umunna and Emily Holland.

 Rat island : predators in paradise and the world’s greatest wildlife rescue, by William Stolzenburg.

 It happened on the way to war : a marine’s path to peace,  by Rye Barcott.

 How sportsmen saved the world : the unsung conservation efforts of hunters and anglers, by  E. Donnall Thomas Jr.

 When Johnny and Jane come marching home: how all of us can help veterans, by Paula J. Caplan