"No one is more surprised than I and grateful that this book is in so many hands," said author Robin Wall Kimmerer to a virtual crowd of eager readers on Thursday, October 21.
Fans of Kimmerer and her inspiring collection of essays, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, joined the author and former host of Worldview Jerome McDonnell in conversation as part of An Evening with Robin Wall Kimmerer.
This was the signature event for this fall’s One Book, One Village (OBOV), the Arlington Heights Memorial Library’s (AHML) annual community read, now in its eighth year.
It was the second year the signature event was held on Zoom and with 626 attendees, it marked the largest audience ever for a One Book, One Village program.
Braiding Sweetgrass was announced as the library's OBOV selection back in August 2021 and has been checked out more than 1,100 times.
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer writes about the natural world and weaves together Indigenous wisdom, plant science and personal narrative, inviting readers to revitalize their connection with the natural world. As a botanist, Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In her book, she brings these lenses of knowledge together to teach and to celebrate the gifts of the earth.
"You have to be outside. Do you have to be in a wild, far off remote place to experience connection with nature? No, because we are nature, our yards are nature, our parks are nature [...] to me it's all about paying attention," Kimmerer said during her conversation with McDonnell. The two covered many topics from the relationship people have with nature to Indigenous viewpoints to the success of her book as it first reached the New York Times bestseller list in 2020 despite being originally published in 2013. Throughout the evening Kimmerer and McDonnell also took questions from the audience.
An Evening with Robin Wall Kimmerer was supported, in part, by the Friends of the Library.