Bats are a much-maligned animal. Long thought of as creepy or evil or diseased, a closer look reveals that the wide variety of bat species also possess an amazing array of attributes and perform all sorts of vital ecological roles: from pollinating bananas and mangoes to eating so many insects every night that they save [...]
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Blog: PowellsBooks.BLOG (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Francesca Lia Block, Lists, Biology, Brian Lies, Janell Cannon, Diane Ackerman, Randall Jarrell, Nature Studies, Frank Herbert, Bill Schutt, Jack Couffer, Thomas H. Kunz, Zachary Thomas Dodson, Add a tag
Blog: PowellsBooks.BLOG (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Environmental Studies, Diane Ackerman, Shelf Talkers, Staff Pick, Add a tag
In her sweeping survey of the way humans have fundamentally altered the planet, Ackerman once again dazzles with her luminous prose and boundless curiosity. Far from a book weighed down by doom, The Human Age examines both our mistakes and our triumphs to demonstrate that, while we can't reverse course, we can forge a new [...]
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Diane Ackerman, Chicago Tribune Printers Row Journal, The Human Age, Add a tag
My thoughts on Diane Ackerman's new book, "The Human Age," appear in this weekend's Chicago Tribune Printers Row Journal.
The review begins like this:
Mental caravan.
It is the phrase that appears on the penultimate page of Diane Ackerman's new book, "The Human Age." The two words bracket all that has come before in this wide-ranging exploration of our world right now. This mini-history of our slurry epoch. This summary of human plunder and residual wonder. This panoramic investigation of vertical ocean gardening, geo-friendly architecture, Wakodahatchee Wetlands, the "bounty" that grows on planted urban walls, the coming age of regenerative medicine. This poetic treatise on microbes and the medicinal power of human touch.And continues here.
Blog: PaperTigers (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: origami, Ed Young, Michael Foreman, James Rumford, Jeanette Winter, Elizabeth Laird, Diane Ackerman, Kelly Waldek, My Handful of the Sky, Drawing from Memory, Elvira Lindo, Emilio Urberuaga, Florence Temko, Hana's Suitcase, Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Joanne Moriarty, Karen Levine, Manolito Four-Eyes, Oranges in No Man's Land, Uma Krishnaswami, Writing With a Broken Tusk, Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set, Rainbow World Poems from Many Cultures, The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, Sadako, Rain School, The House Baba Built, The Zoo-Keeper's Wife, Add a tag
Since my last update on this year’s PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge, we have added some great books to our list.
Together, we have read two new autobiographical picture books: Allen Say’s Drawing from Memory (Scholastic, 2011) and Ed Young’s The House Baba Built (Little, Brown and Company, 2011) – both wonderful, and I’m not going to say much more about them here as we will be featuring both of them more fully on PaperTigers soon. Those are our reading-together non-fiction books for the Challenge.
As our local book, we tried reading a book of folk tales from the North York Moors, where we live in the UK, but discovered the stories formed part of a tourist guide, including instructions for getting around… we extracted what we could but it wasn’t a very satisfactory read. It has made us not take beautifully illustrated and retold folk tales for granted!
Older Brother has read Rainbow World: Poems from Many Cultures edited by Bashabi Fraser and Debjani Chatterjee , and illustrated by Kelly Waldek (Hodder Children’s Books, 2003). He dipped in and out of it through the summer break and we had to renew it from the library several times…
Older Brother has also been totally captivated by A Thousand Cranes: Origami Projects for Peace and Happiness. After reading the story of Sadako for the Reading Challenge way back in its first year, he’s wanted to know how to make the cranes but I have two left hands when it comes to origami – or at least I thought I did, until I received a review copy of A Thousand Cranes from Stone Bridge Press. Recently revised and expanded from the original book by renowned origami expert Florence Temko, it’s a super little book, with good clear instructions for beginners like us, and giving background about both the offering of a thousand origami cranes as a symbol of longevity, and specifically the story of Sadako and the Thousand Cranes. Older Brother, now that he is older, enjoyed reading this factual account here, and learning more about the Peace Park in Hiroshima. He is now determined to make a string of 1,000 cranes himself and send them to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial: full details of how to do this are included in the book. There are also lots of ideas for other craft projects, though I’m not sure any of us is quite up to making anything like the amazing example shown of pictures made with 1,001 cranes as wedding gifts. But with such clear instructions, the only difficulty now is choosing which of the 48 pieces of beautiful Japanese chiyogami
Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: luis j. rodriguez, poetry, Neruda, Martin Espada, Diane Ackerman, blogueros, gratitude list, Add a tag
In no particular order:
I wish for...
Universal health care for all
Universal literacy and the means to achieve it
Meaningful work at a true living wage for all
A planet without us wounding it by thoughtless use of resources
And end to gun barrel diplomacy
I am grateful for...
a spiritual outlook and a real relationship with Spirit
some small gift to be able to write
a larger gift to be able to appreciate the genius, hardwork,
and talent of so many others
Martin Espada
Dina Ackerman
Luis Rodriguez
Pablo Neruda
the blogueros
Ann Cardinal in particular
strength, both physical and emotional
the ability to find joy and beauty in everyday life
the ability to laugh
Lisa Alvarado
Very well said. I'd have to agree with you on all counts!