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This Strange Wilderness: The Life and Art of John James Audubon by Nancy Plain. University of Nebraska Press. 2015. Library Copy. YALSA Nonfiction Finalist.

It's About: John James Audubon (1785 - 1851) wrote and illustrated The Birds of America, which contained almost 500 different birds, all shown life size and in full color.

This is the story of who Audubon was and his work.

The Good: While I was generally aware of Audubon, mostly it was because of his appearances in other YA books I've read, notably Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt (my review) where some of those illustrations figure significantly into the plot; and The Race to Save the Lord God Bird by Philip Hoose, about one bird in particular that was painted by Audubon.

Who knew that Audubon was born in Haiti and raised in France! I had no idea. I am not an animal person, so truth be told the birds itself didn't interest me, but the biography of Audubon fascinated me. He came to America as a teenager, sent by a father hoping to save his son from fighting in Napoleon's army. He fell in love with the new country, and there fully developed his passion for nature and birds and illustration.

The process of how Audubon drew his birds was also interesting; a combination of art and science. And yes, he killed the birds, so that he could then pose them to be lifelike. Which seems so weird to a modern reader, but this was before photographs. This was before any other way to truly study and draw the birds in a way to portray them fully. Audubon didn't just blunder along, shooting; he also studied the birds, learning about them, and wrote about his scientific findings. His writings also included his own journeys and adventures along the way. And, as a hunter, he was also an environmentalist because while he hunted for food, or for art, he also realized the danger of extinction.

If you'd asked me before I read this book about Audubon, I'd have guessed rich. And as the book begins it seems like there was truth to that, from his upbringing to the land in Pennsylvania that his father bought him. But he wasn't; and Audubon pursued his studies (which often meant travel) even when he didn't have much money. He drew portraits and taught drawing and did other things to support his dream of studying and drawing birds.

Audubon did this even though he had a wife and children. And at this point, the biography I want is of Lucy Audubon, who at times followed her husband to log cabins in Kentucky and to England; and at other times, stayed behind, earning the money to support her children while her husband followed his own dreams. Who was forced into independence while married, yet also strongly supported her husband.

And then of course there is the business end, of how Audubon's illustrations were transformed into a book. Again, in a time without computers; when each page had to be hand colored; when Audubon insisted that they remain life-size. "Subscriptions" were sold for the intended publications, and Audubon had to turn into a salesman to convince people to buy something that hadn't been published yet.

I love how this is all told in less than a hundred pages. I'm on a Regency Romance reading kick, and just checked out some thick, dense non-fiction of that period and wow, I wish at least one of them was a tidy hundred pages. (Also, it doesn't escape my notice that This Strange Wilderness occupies the same slice of time as the romances I've been reading.)

One more point, and perhaps the most important: there are many, many of Audubon's illustrations, all in full color. When reading about art, it really helps to be able to see it. And, also, now I'm intrigued to see the actual originals.





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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

Continuing with Schiel & Denver Book Publishers‘s U.S. Constitution series in modern American political life, today we consider further areas of writing appropriately about our Constitution and how to frame narrative in these sensitive contexts.

The intent of the Common Laws in America was to preserve the Sovereignty and rights of all citizens in the new Republic of America known as the United States of America. Such intent shocked the world historically, lawfully, and realistically as it challenged the heart of all previously known rights of heredity, nobility, and dominion over lands and property as well as people.Sovereign, in early Webster 1828 dictionary definitions comes closest to that understood by our founding fathers:

Supreme in power; possessing supreme dominion, as a sovereign prince. God is the sovereign ruler of the universe; also supreme; pertaining to the first magistrate of a nation; as sovereign authority; also a supreme lord or ruler; one who possesses the highest authority without control. Some earthly princes, kings, and emperors are sovereigns in their domains.

And sovereignty was defined then as “Supreme power; supremacy; the possession of the highest power, or of uncontrollable power. Absolute power belongs to God only.”

It is no accident, then, that our founding fathers claimed their sovereignty came from God’s law that all men are created equal.Sovereignty had shifted to a right belonging to man, granted by the supreme ruler of the universe.People were no longer to be considered vassals, subordinates, and slaves only to serve the pleasures of sovereign earthly rulers, who usually inherited their status or won it through force and continued to exercise it over all the people and lands under their dominion.Our Nation was founded by people who claimed their freedom and sovereignty as a right derived from God.

They wanted new lives in a new country; and although there was allegiance to the old country, the intense desire to be sovereign as man was their birthright.The Great Seal for the federal government of the United States clearly affirms on its obverse Crest: a glory Orb, breaking through a cloud proper, surrounding an azure field bearing a constellation of thirteen stars argent. And on its reverse, the eye at the top of a pyramid is the Eye of Providence with the Latin motto Annuit Coeptis in the sky above – meaning It (the eye of Providence) is favorable to our undertakings or He favors our undertakings.) – Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were given the task of creating the seal on July 4, 1776 and it was officially adopted on June 20, 1782.

Sovereignty was an expression, then, of the natural, organic, God-given Right that man was created equal and such rights are natural as they are granted by the Supreme Authority: Providence. Thus, in 1772 at a Town Meeting in Boston, such rights although internationally a threat to the existing monarchy and ecclesiastical supremacy of many nations, were adopted and expanded to being;

“the Natural Rights of the Colonists are these First, a Right to Life, Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can – Those are evident Branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature –“Sovereignty continues to explain such Natural Rights relating to Life, Liberty, and Property, and concludes the Rights of Colonists with the force majeure that:“no men or body of men, consistently with their own rights as men and citizens or members of society, can for themselves give up, or take away from others.”“First, The first positive law of all Commonwealths or States, is the establishing the legislative power; as the first fundamental natural law also, which is to govern even the legislative power itself, is the preservation of the Society.

Secondly, The Legislative has no right to absolute arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people…

Thirdly, The supreme power cannot Justly take from any man, any part of his property without his consent, in person or by his Representative.”These, then, were the Colonists’ sovereign expression of the first principles of natural law and justice and the basic fundamental maxims of the Common Law: common sense and reason.And again, the Natural Rights are expressed as Declarations by an act of the early American Continental Congress at New York, on October 19, 1765. This time, however, the rights are expanded as “humble opinions” respecting the most essential rights and liberties of the Colonists to protest taxes, duties, and to assert as a seventh right to establish sovereignty:“That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies.”

And as an eighth right in claiming sovereignty:

“That the late act of Parliament, entitled, “An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties in the British colonies and plantations in America, etc.” by imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies, and the aid act, and several other acts by extending the jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty beyond its ancient limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonies.”

All such claim for personal Rights, as a natural course, are summarized with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence and a pledge to each other of lives, fortunes, and sacred honor of the Colonists in their Declaration of Independence, as adopted in Congress on July 4, 1776 — now a matter of the historical records of “The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the United States,” compiled under an order of the United States Senate by Ben Perley Poore, Clerk of Printing Records. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877.

Finally, to insure that there is no doubt, even in the new country, the United States of America, a Bill of Rights is agreed to and added as the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution when ratified on December 15, 1791.

Amendment IX expressly identifies the limitation of the new federal government and re-affirms sovereignty remains in the people.

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

And with even more specificity, Amendment X expressly identifies the limitations extending from the new federal government down through the individual States by reservation, and continues to re-affirm sovereignty remaining ultimately in the people.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’

Should the States not claim sovereignty power over the federal government, when necessary; then the people are the ultimate power proving that they hold the force majeure and are the master over the servant State or federal government when not specifically delegated as a national government. The claiming of sovereignty meant freedom and liberty for all.

The Liberty Bell, to announce such ideas of sovereignty, could not ring until the people were prepared and ready to form a more perfect union and ratify a Constitution for and of the United States of America.

And such ideas of freedom and liberty had to be communicated to the common man; to all the Colonists. Thus, the Federalist Papers originally written under the name of Publius, were published and distributed to all of the thirteen proposed states.