— BOOK REVIEWS —

Wetland, Woodland, Wildland: A Guide to the natural communities of vermont

by Elizabeth H. Thompson, Eric R. Sorenson, and Robert J. Zaino

Chelsea Green Publishing, 2019

550 pages, paperback

Book review by Hannah Paige

The latest edition of Wetland, Woodland, Wildland may be written “for people who care about the natural landscape,” but it’s also for those who are interested in an elevated travel guide, who wish to feel welcomed into a community of advanced, nuanced and extremely observant environment enthusiasts and to never look back. The admission to join this community of readers is strict attentiveness and the desire to reevaluate how you view the world, and perhaps a dictionary nearby. This book is not to be read by lamplight, with half a mind and a tired consciousness, but a book to be studied. Wetland, Woodland, Wildland makes a student of the reader and asks that they relinquish their preconceptions of a nature book. There will be a learning curve to reading this book. Prepare to re-read sentences; eyebrows will furrow; the brain will be tested. But if the reader is willing to rise to the occasion, they are sure to be rewarded with a more detailed and thorough understanding of the natural world, or what Thompson and her fellow co-authors call “a keener eye”.

The book takes a fundamental approach in making itself useful. It’s not interested in being a surface-level field guide. There are no “lovely forests” perfect for photo opportunities. There are “boreal outcrops” and swamps, examinations of topography and geology. The first section of the book offers explanations of the communities to be identified in the later sections. When the reader encounters the field guides, taking up the most page space, they are expected to have read the introductory and informational sections explaining the communities they are now being tasked with identifying. Again, the student role is embraced. The authors give us the detailed knowledge that is often withheld from nature guides and then ask us to take it into the field, make scientists of ourselves with our newly earned insight.

Wetland, Woodland, Wildland aims to make us all more informed of the inner workings of the natural world. It begs to be taken deep into the Vermont wild and put to the test, giving hikers, scientists, and parents alike the ability to identify yellow warblers, buttonbush and the soil complex of a softwood swamp. By making us understand how environments and natural communities can coexist and relate to one another, the authors invite us to see how we fit into the natural world. The book poses the question: Now that I see that nothing, surely, is independent, but always affecting another species or habitat, a larger part in a chain of codependency, what then is my place in the world? What role do I play?

Canoeing Maine’s Legendary Allagash: Thoreau, Romance, and Survival of the Wild

by David K. Leff

2016 Homebound Publications

174 pages, hardcover

Book review by Hannah Paige

David K. Leff describes his own book Canoeing Maine’s Legendary Allagash as “A young person’s effort to find meaning in adventure” as well as “a personal time capsule” which is really what all documented journeys should be. Leff’s book about his journey canoeing down Maine’s Allagash river is less of a guidebook to the area and more of a memoir that exposes the possibilities of travel. In this book, Leff uses travel as a lens through which to see the human condition, to explore what travel can reveal about ourselves. He does this through deep reflection on his trip as well as by situating himself with the travelers that have come before him. An unfortunate shortcoming of some travel books is that they write within a vacuum—the story being told to the perceived reader who is, as the format and the prose would suggest, the only one taking this trip. But Leff recalls the crucial act of thinking of the travelers that have come before him. He is careful to always write in relation to, whether that be in relation to John McPhee, who also wrote on the Allagash river area, or Maine’s most acclaimed travel writer before the genre even existed: Henry David Thoreau.

These previous travelers are chosen consciously for Leff’s comparison. He is, first and foremost, writing as a writer, rather than a traveler. This means that the reader is in for a good story but also good writing, which is yet another distinguishing factor of this book. This perspective allows for the book to be in conversation with many texts, both fiction and nonfiction, and proves the story to be a historical and agricultural examination, but also a literary education. Leff doesn’t omit his attention to the construction of the sentence and admits that part of his investment in this exploration is to determine how traveling will change his use of language. How can travelling make him a better writer? This is just one of the many questions that Leff aims to answer in this book. Others include: Why are we drawn to travel in the first place? What gives us this desire to connect with nature? How does a journey change our bodies and minds, our relationships with the people we travel with? These are no doubt complex questions that demand close observational skills, “sharpened perceptions” (a behavior Leff admits to developing while on the journey), and the ability to identify and appreciate connections between parts of our lives. The best travel writing, and the best writers are the ones who—and in fact will accept nothing less of their work—bridge the gap between ideas that are typically not associated closely.

This is perhaps one of the most beautiful qualities of Canoeing Maine’s Legendary Allagash—its insistence on the coexistence of subjects. The book is not just a personal reflection or an ode to Thoreau or the story of what Leff learned about nature as a young traveler; nor is it simply a document revealing how a single place can change over time. It is all of these and more, just like a journey is not just an opportunity to better understand the world around you but is an opportunity to better understand ourselves.

Scenic Driving New England

by Stewart M. Green

2019 Globe Pequot

400 pages, paperback

Book review by Hannah Paige

As any leaf-peeper knows, New England should not be visited without a camera at the ready. There is, as Stewart M. Green’s book, Scenic Driving New England, shows us, simply too much beauty to capture. It would be a shame to miss out on the opportunity to take photographs half as breathtaking in their authenticity and their simplicity as Green’s own documentation of some of New England’s greatest landscapes, sites and attractions along its back roads.

Though Green claims that New England is a “landscape that lives in the American imagination,” his portrayal of the region over the course of thirty scenic drives that cover more than 2,000 miles, is nothing if not genuine. The photographs in this book are half the joy, really. They feature not only the attractions and features along the routes, but there are people living in them too. It lends a realness to the guide. Sometimes photographs can appear to be curated in travel guides, giving the illusion that wherever the travel finds her/himself will be tidied before they get there. Where they are going is an idealized version of the world, instead of the world itself. Green is not interested in portraying neat versions of places. He’s interested in reveling in, curating appreciation for, the vibrance and the beauty that is found in living places. New England, its landscapes, its history is not pristine. It is one of the few places left in the United States that has maintained its natural beauty, its wildness, as Thoreau would say. This should be highlighted, and Green does exactly that in this book.

Another rather refreshing way in which Green shows the authenticity of the area is through his attention to the Native American history that is intimately tied, though unfortunately often omitted from other histories of the region, to New England. Green relates the sites along the scenic routes to Native American history on several occasions, throughout each state. This lends an awareness to the book. It does not exist in isolation, but is discussing a rich place, peopled by many different cultures, each with their own stamp on the landscape and history of its growth.

This is a fast-paced book, as if you’re seeing what Green points out to you out the window of your own moving car, and the descriptions are brief. Green gives a bit of background information on locations but insists that you make your own observations. This perhaps lends itself nicely to the true spirit of the region. New England is a place of independence, of rolling up your sleeves and doing the work yourself. While Green does highlight some of New England’s notable attractions, such as Acadia or White Mountain State Park, he also leaves room for the sites that are often omitted in histories of New England, such as the history of the iron industry in Salisbury, CT that provided much of the materials needed for the war of 1812 or that of ski lifts in other regions. No history and no detail is too insignificant for Green, as can also be seen by his attention to the roads of your travels too. He discusses the wind, the road incline grade. For Green, what allows you to travel, indeed what you travel on is also part of the journey. Scenic Driving New England is as detailed as it is enjoyable, a true union of history, photography and travel.

Route One Food Run

by Vinnie Penn

2018 Globe Pequot

192 pages, paperback

Book review by Hannah Paige

Vinnie Penn’s book Route One Food Run introduces a new type of travel book. It is lively, dynamic, truly a road trip in itself. What many readers have come to expect when they pick up a travel book (color-coded cities and lists of sites and attractions boiled down to a few sentences and writing often emphasizing the pragmatic over the entertaining) is left behind in Route One Food Run. The restaurants described along Route One span from trailers and unassuming beach shacks to fine dining; there are places inspiring nostalgia, others embracing modern health trends. Penn has the reader covered for whatever kind of dining experience they might be interested in. No matter what they’re in the mood for, they can find it in New England.

The book is clear in its form without forfeiting the accessibility of a more traditionally organized travel book. The state-by-state sections, describing each restaurant, are full of Penn’s humor and conversational tone. In admiring Bistro Mediterranean Tapas Bar in Connecticut, he diverges to more fully express his delight in the restaurant and writes, “Let’s discuss these Spanish peppers in detail, shall we?” Later, at Luigi’s Restaurant, he prepares the reader for unabashed indulgence in the rich Italian food: “The 6-Cheese Italian Purses are my go-to order, the handmade pasta is formed into purse shapes, filled with six cheeses, and then tossed in a rich, creamy Alfredo sauce. The devout devour the seafood here, especially the jumbo shrimp scampi. Either way, that top button’s coming undone.”

Along with his descriptions and personalized advice for the reader is an accompanying song that best suites the mood of the restaurant, and often a recipe or even two. These details—the soundtrack, the recipe, Penn’s care to write with conversational and inviting prose—make this travel book one of a kind and, hopefully, a sign that the genre itself is evolving to include a broader spectrum of books. In so doing he has not only introduced new territory to the genre but has raised the standards of those who enjoy it.

The reader does not feel as if they are being coached through a travel itinerary, but as if they are being taken on a road trip. They are in the backseat, the window down as they drive. They too emerge from the car, shake the sleep from their limbs, as Penn cues up Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” for them to order their custom burger at Flipside Burgers & Bar in Connecticut. The trip is not over for the reader when they finish the book though. This is a journey meant to be taken home. Penn fully embraces the pendulum swing of travel in Route One; with the end of a journey (or a book) beginning another as the reader is left with recipes to experience this road trip again and again. It is a lasting experience, what Penn has created in this book that engages all the senses. In this time of stagnation, for a writer to give a reader the opportunity to endlessly immerse themselves in a journey is truly a gift.

Tourists In the Known World

New and Selected Poems

by Kristen Lindquist

2017 Megunticook Press

93 pages, paperback

Book review by Scott Lesniewski, Contributing Editor, Brilliant Light Publishing

Tourists in the Known World by Kristen Lindquist is a collection of poetry in five parts, written from 1992-2016. Each section is a field trip glimpse into the poet’s everyday life, with some days exhilarating and, some down-right ordinary. Yet despite the familiarity, each day is vibrant with natural beauty, admiration, love, and wonder. Along the way, we can easily take our own mental snapshots as we’re presented pages as open windows into the poet’s loves, travels, childhood memories, relatives, home and place.

The collection opens with Invocation to the Birds. Using the words: pray, plead, call upon, I beg you, harangue for a share,” and finally, “I bow my head to you,” we share in the need for connection, strength, and clear direction for the road ahead. And in Ragged Mountain: The Way In, we’re given clear direction from someone who knows the area well:

“Beyond the interlaced stone walls of old pastures,

a sparrow flies just ahead of you, always ahead of you

on the trail…”


And then, once you’ve arrived, how best to take rest and savor the moment:

“Take off your hat,

untie your hair, humble yourself to the wind

which has scattered even this mountain, worn down

these stones that feel like forever. You’re there.”

The next section, Uncollected Poems (1992-2011) takes us away from the trail and familiar places of hometown Camden, Maine and onto the crowded sidewalks of Chinatown, to a bus ride hauling a 25-pound sack of rice, to a love affair – more living and learning, as elements fall into place and become days in a lifetime; to the vacuum cleaner threatening a dog’s quiet space, causing him to wonder at what might be happening, to the click of pool balls in restaurants, crickets in the rose bushes, the stimulation of our senses -- a call to action. Breath in, breath out:

“… It’s okay

to feel this longing. Put your hands

right there on your thighs.

Now, what else do you want?”

Moving forward to Transportation (2011), this part of the collection begins with a walk through O’Hare Airport shortly after landing ahead of schedule. The poet’s contentment has her grinning ear-to-ear without a care. I’m reminded of Zen monks attentively walking through a busy shopping mall, as part of their walking meditation. It seems for the moment we are tapped into the “flow:”

“My plane was twenty minutes early.

Even before I descend into the trippy light show

of the walkway between terminals,

I am ecstatic. I can’t stop smiling…

… A group of schoolchildren passes on the escalator,

and I want to ask where they’re going.

Tell me your story, I want to say.

This is life in motion.”

Also in this section, are memories of Grandmother and her home:

“Naked is the only way, she says.

And, you have to jump right in.”

And from, Three Rooms: Sun Porch:

“Oaks not yet tumbled down the bluff,

still holding everything together

with old, lacing branches, deep roots.

We were rich.

I like to think we knew it.”

Further onward, we discover a black sheep in the family, listen to the sounds of life in town, marvel at how baseball saves a marriage, drink rice wine and sing praises to the moon – more opportunities to bask in the natural beauty of fields and trail, island and sea, more poetic moments of ecstasy and inner connection.

“The moon shares my joy

in its white glow. I tip my cup in her honor…”

The final section, New Poems (2012-2016) is the longest, with poems that read like intimate diary pages; a trip to the Bahamas to locate an endangered bird species, the changing seasons, the god of sea ducks, tourists in the known world sending postcards that read, “Wish you were here.” There are so many gems to be found here, it is overwhelming. The final poem finishes the collection with simple, clear, sanity:

from Moon-viewing Party After the Election:

“why can’t it just be like this

all of us standing together in moonlight

(you here too, with me)

listening with care to each other”

I truly enjoyed reading these poems. They’ve reminded me that seemingly ordinary events of a day can offer insights. Boredom or familiarity offer clues and information for our own unsolvable puzzle, the game of life. From a writer who knows her home and the surrounding area well, this collection is a songbook of living, with anthems proclaiming experiences of love and beauty experienced by being truly alive and connected.

To read more from Kristen Lindquist, visit her daily haiku blog, Book of Days.

Around the World in Fifty Years:

Travel Tales of a Not So Innocent Abroad

by Elayne Clift

The Invited: A Novel

by Jennifer McMahon, Doubleday (2019)

Book Review by Laura C. Stevenson

Paranormal Mystery Set in Northern Vermont

The novel opens with a brief scene in 1924 Hartsboro, Vermont, told in the first person by Hattie Breckenridge, known locally as a witch. It describes her capture by villagers whose children have just died in the burning schoolhouse—an event which she foretold. She manages to hide her daughter Jane (who has, as her foreknowledge did not tell her, set the fire), but she cannot save herself. She refuses to say where she is rumored to have hidden her once-wealthy family's money, and the furious villagers lynch her and throw her corpse in Breckenridge Bog, part of her property. Fast-forward ninety-one years to 2015. Helen and Nate, middle school teachers in a Connecticut suburb, decide to leave their comfortable lives and seek the simplicity of Vermont, in a sustainable house they plan to build themselves. They fall in love with the Breckenridge property; Nate, a scientist, is excited by its woods, bog and wildlife, and Helen, an historian, is excited by the prospect of researching the story that comes with the land.

As they start to build (the book is divided into sections that follow the house's progress: Foundation, Framing, and so on), Helen begins to see Hattie's ghost, and Nate becomes obsessed with his sightings of an albino deer that eludes all his attempts to photograph. And things—wallets, tools—disappear for no ascertainable reason. One night, they capture the "ghost" whose presence they've sensed: it's Olive, a fourteen-year-old girl who lives with her father and the town's nasty tales about her mother, who has disappeared. Olive confesses that she has been robbing them to buy a metal detector to help her find Hattie Breckenridge's treasure, which her mother was sure existed. In return for their not calling the police, Olive offers to help them build, and it's not an idle offer, because her father is incessantly rebuilding their house for the wife that doesn't return. Helen and Olive thus embark on a tangentially related search, as Olive finds inconsistencies in the story of her mother's disappearance and Helen, assembling a beam, bricks and other old things for her new house, gradually finds out that three generations of Breckenridge women have all died violently. She becomes sure that Hattie keeps appearing to her in a desperate attempt to save the only survivor, and as the conclusion makes clear, she is right.

The idea of a couple's building a haunted house is a good one, and McMahon, a novelist of considerable reputation, handles the nuts and bolts of the Vermont scenery and Helen's historical discoveries very well. The mystery that is Hattie's legacy is revealed not through Helen's research, but by scenes that parallel Hattie's opening piece: several historical women suddenly appear to the reader, not as ghosts but as narrators who tell their tragic tales. While interesting in itself, this technique considerably weakens the book's suspense, and an alert reader will foresee the ending long before it comes. Olive is a good character: convincingly teeny, but also lonely and determined. He story gradually takes over the novel; in the final chapters, Helen, Nate and their house are barely mentioned. We intuit, however, that their project has been successful, that Hattie, her mission accomplished, leaves them alone, and that they have settled in.

© Laura C. Stevenson, first appeared in Deerfield Valley News, 5/16/2019

The Animal One Thousand Miles Long: Seven Lengths of Vermont and Other Adventures

by Leath Tonino

2018 Trinity University Press

Book Review by Laura C. Stevenson

Debut collection of essays from a young writer celebrating Vermont

The animal in the title is a creature Aristotle invented in The Poetics (7B) to demonstrate that an observer of a gigantic object could see only its parts, and thus lost perception of its "unity and wholeness." Tonino implicitly compares Vermont to this animal; his twenty essays, collected from periodicals published between 2011 and 2017, portray his adventures and observations in all parts of the state. Together, they also portray his impossible yearning to experience the whole by feeling "the infinite invitation that is the terrain of home."

Young and vigorous, Tonino is an enthusiastic adventurer. "Seven Lengths of Vermont," for example, opens with his vow, upon returning from several years "bumming around the West," to rediscover his native Vermont by touring it in seven different ways in the course of a year. The reader (presumably ensconced on a sofa) then becomes his vicarious companion as he hikes the length of the Long Trail, hitch-hikes around the state in over thirty rides; completes a three-week, 300-mile ski trek along the Catamount Trail; bikes through the state in a tour of some 500 miles; paddles 260 miles in a canoe trek along the Connecticut River; swims, in ten days, the length of Lake Champlain; and finally, climbs into a friend's small plane for a two-hour “vast and fast” flyover of the whole state. At the end of the year, Tonino has experienced parts of Vermont from many angles and at many different speeds in an attempt to understand the whole.

There are more parts, of course, and more ways to investigate them. In "The Smiles are Huge" Tonino goes jack-jumping, a winter sport practiced only in Vermont. Other portraits of his cold and exhausting winter adventures (biathlons, New Year's Day kayaking, sled-packing) prove that Vermont offers winter opportunities far beyond commercial skiing. Mingled with Tonino's delightfully ironic portrayals of his adventures are interesting considerations of Vermont's present wilderness (its official Wilderness areas) and its unofficial wildness, thousands of acres of trees that are the result of ecological collapse and subsequent regeneration.

Between 1791 and the War of 1812, Tonino says, Vermont had the fastest growing population of any state in the union; a half-century later, its population had declined 40%. Why? Because the early settlers had clear-cut its virgin forest, raised sheep that overgrazed the resulting pastures, and abandoned it as the topsoil washed away. Tonino's essay "Seeing is an Art" portrays one of the first naturalists to recognize man's catastrophic effect on his landscape: Darwin's contemporary George Perkins Marsh, a distinguished resident of Woodstock. As a cautionary tale about this destruction, Tonino offers the nineteenth century town of Glastenbury (near Somerset), in which 21 brick kilns produced charcoal, each of them burning 50 cords of wood a day, and a sawmill turned out 1000 board feet an hour … until, with no more trees to hold mountain topsoil, the town disappeared after the "freshet" of 1898. Hiking to the town's location, Tonino found all signs of civilization covered by regrown forest—a "wilderness in recovery, the flow of wildness across time."

Tonino's adventures encourage Vermont natives and visitors to look at the wildness about them, instead of assuming that wilderness can be found only in the West. Provided that they heed George Perkins Marsh's observation that "sight is a faculty; seeing, an art," they will develop a deep appreciation for the varied and beautiful wild parts of the animal a thousand miles long.

© Laura C. Stevenson, first appeared in Deerfield Valley News, 2/7/2019

Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance

by Bill McKibben

Book Review by Jon Meyer

How do you make a serious subject like global warming and the survival of our planet fun to read about? It takes a good wit and an ability to get the audience on your side.

Bill McKibben's first novel points to a near future time when Vermont has already warmed considerably. "The globe had warmed faster and harder than anyone had predicted. With Arctic ice melted, there was no place to build up the intense cold that had always marked winter in Vermont. Lake Champlain didn't freeze anymore, and if snow fell, it was usually for a few nighttime hours in the middle of a rainstorm."

The author ably sets the secessionist theme by using parallel references to a time early in our nation's history, and well-known in Vermont. "Ethan Allen went to Albany for the great court battle, but it was a put-up job. The judges were puppets. They held that all the people farming in Vermont had to buy their land again, this time from the New Yorkers. The next day the attorney general of New York visited Allen, and told him to go tell his friends to make the veiled threat. 'Might often prevails over right,' he pointed out, with the confidence you'd expect from a representative of the mightiest empire on earth. Ethan Allen looked at him and said, 'The gods of the valleys are not the gods of the hills, and you shall understand it!' And he headed home."

"When he got there, he assembled the Green Mountain Boys -- remember, these men were faced with losing their land. And they passed a resolution. I'm quoting from memory here, resolving to protect their land from the New Yorkers 'by force, as law and justice were denied them.'"
McKibben is well-known for leading the global resistance to consumption of fossil fuels that are major contributors to global warming. He makes it plausible that the Vermont resistance version of this worldwide movement could ignite serious Vermont secession momentum. This is the action he calls for in his quote, “We are not in a position of despair, but in a position of engagement.”

Many Vermont details are utilized to give Radio Free Vermont specificity, plausibility, and a dry sense of humor. "Also, she likes the man who screams at you about stocks, and honks the horn at night. He reminds us of the men who stood outside the naked lady tent at the Tunbridge Fair when we were girls. We didn't want to see the naked ladies -- we could just look at ourselves -- but we liked listening to him talk."

Radio Free's hero, Vern Barclay, has been a Vermont broadcaster, and broadcasts news of the resistance, along with realistic commentary about the bleak future when a good Vermont snowstorm is a rarity. "The big news from the National Weather Service is predicting that tomorrow will bring the first serious snowstorm in three years to the Green Mountain State." McKibben has famously said in his public lectures, "Take no snowstorm for granted." This future rare one becomes a foil for the secessionist resistance's moves that give this tale an adventure and suspenseful ending.

McKibben weaves his fable into a very readable prediction of what could happen -- a Vermont secessionist success that some would like to see happen, in contrast to the dire and ultimately believable not so far future of Vermont when its consistent winter snow culture will become a nostalgic white memory.

To the Left of the Sun: Poems

by Linda Flaherty Haltmaier

Book Review by Scott Lesniewski, Contributing Editor, Brilliant Light Publishing

Award-winning writer and Poet Laureate of Andover, MA, Linda Flaherty Haltmaier’s third book of poetry, To the Left of the Sun: Poems (Homebound Publications) has a cover photograph of a bird making its final approach toward an evergreen branch. Each one of the piney needles is pointing upward to the sky, as the outstretched wings of the bird are unfurled, negotiating another safe landing.

The first poem, Dead Birds, begins with an invitation:

“Bring me your dead birds, drop them on the stoop and together we’ll sit and marvel at their beauty between sips of iced tea.”

I love this poem, its respect for the feline nature, its appreciation of the:

“tenacity it took to pluck this aerialist from the sky,” as violent as that sounds. It seems a shame not to admire the bird while still animated, but:

“Dreams are skittish and spook easily into the bush.”

Birds like dreams are pounced upon when the moment is right, springing into action and taking shape in the ordinary experiences of every-day living. There are more than a few birds throughout this collection of 53 poems, each displays its feathers to admire, but just as ordinary humans have their “chop wood,” “carry water,” ”business of the day” days, so too the:

“Sparrows do their version outside the kitchen window, they flit and squeak, beaks full, then not—”

Life moves along throughout the five chapters of poetry, soaring over emotional landscapes as children leave the nest, memories are pondered, seasons change, family secrets are kept, bodies age, deteriorate, die, and are buried. Challenged by the passage of time, the poet rises with the sun and thrives. There is beauty to be recorded despite the inevitable, as in Deflated:

“The pendulum swoosh sends a first morning chill through the bedroom window,”

or from Morning Walk:

“…the collision of seasons peeling back, making room, stages of birth, death, grief, and a thousand nuances in between.”

And as one might expect, a crow and a blue jay are both observed.

Also found within the pages, the accepted sacrifices of women are pointed out. Dangerous Women and On Demand stand in solidarity with women suppressed by a society determined by men in positions of power. Then, piercing the madness of it all, we’re captured in mid-flight by a timely poem as brief as a tombstone epitaph:

Election Results

The trees don’t know who won or lost— they stand, rooted and flaming, dropping leaves that gold plate the earth like the walls of a Buddhist temple.

Mention of the Buddha is enough to ground us as the final poem offers a visit to a garden, where a stone statue of a saint with a bird perched atop his head is surrounded by passing slugs and swaying lilacs. Here forgiveness is considered, but not granted. A hardened perfection is left to the birds as the author holds onto past injustices, “like a little girl and her threadbare rabbit.” The best that can come of it is to enjoy the garden together.

To the Left of the Sun is strewn through and through with imagery of birds and nature. In the company of polished stones in the pocket of a suicide, the dirt of a freshly carved grave, a lady bug crawling across window glass, the planting of zucchini seeds – reading each poem is a brisk hike through real life; no lazy walk in the park. Keep eyes wide open while weeding the garden. One may encounter thistles, some amusing, some annoying, some quite painful. The roses on this box of chocolates will draw blood.

Cody the Cloud

by Kevin Mulhern

2015 Mascot Books

38 pages, hardcover

Book review by Angelina Singer, Publishing Intern, Brilliant Light Publishing

Cody the Cloud is a delightful story written by Kevin Mulhern that teaches children to employ empathy and compassion more fluently in their lives through the whimsical narrative of a cloud befriending a young boy. The concept is a clever one, which consists of both characters grappling with their own paradoxical deficits in the contexts of their problematic social climates.

Cody is a young cloud who is made fun of by the other bigger clouds because he cannot make rain. The young boy he meets one day feels similarly inadequate, as he explains he is too small to work on his father’s farm. Only when they band together in their new friendship do they find a way to fix both their problems. As it turns out, everything they needed was inside them the whole time, and their unlikely friendship was the catalyst needed to bring about their mutual successes.

From a narrative perspective, this story is quite creative, and the crisp and animated illustrations truly match the story both in energy and tone. Young readers will love the colors and realistic facial expressions of the characters. Paired with the singsong lyrical quality of the writing, this book hits all the right notes for its target audience of children ages four through eight.

“The boy said, ‘I know we may feel small.

We may not be strong, we may not be tall.

But you and I can change the weather.

Side-by-side, we’ll do it together.’”

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to enrich the life of a young child with the gift of empathy and compassion. As someone who was bullied as a child, I can say that this lesson is a crucial component to building a better tomorrow for the next generation.

To connect with Kevin, you can find his work on www.codythecloud.com or on Instagram (@codythecloudbook).

Lolly’s Picnic

By Laura Crisafulli Kennedy

2015 Stillwater River Publications

28 pages, paperback

Book review by Angelina Singer, Publishing Intern, Brilliant Light Publishing

Lolly’s Picnic is a beautifully illustrated story of encouragement written by Laura Crisafulli Kennedy, that helps children cope with life’s big journeys – such as moving to a new home. This concept of a young girl having an outdoor play date develops the character and lessons of believing in yourself.

Lolly’s animated toys come alive and ease her concerns about moving to a new place. They address her fears by reminding her about her inner essence, and encourage her to spread positivity and joy. Each toy has a fun quality. Lucky the Ladybug gave Lolly one of her spots – a fun tongue-in-cheek twist on “earning your stripes” and rolling with whatever comes at you. Also, Oliver the Octopus, is a wonderful dancer despite often getting tangled up in his own tentacles.

The story performs very well as a children’s story. Was it necessary to include Magic the Witch in the story?  Thematically, I didn’t see the connection between the witch and the toys that Lolly plays with. Crisp illustrations with soft outlines and highly saturated color gradients seem to float and swirl on the page. This inventive visual effect is especially welcome as young readers will undoubtedly be drawn right into the story, even finding themselves sitting next to Lolly at her picnic.

“Sometimes being strong and brave means finding a way not to be afraid.

Sometimes it means believing in something even when it is hard to believe

and sometimes it means standing up for what you think is right.

There are so many ways to be strong.”

The illustrations are excellent, along with the positive ideas, and coping mechanisms presented. It is simple enough for young children to grasp, but the lessons learned here last a lifetime. Creativity and imagination abound through the very relatable character of Lolly.

Monkey By The Sea

by Jessica L Gervais

2016 Mascot Books

40 pages, hardcover

Book review by Angelina Singer, Publishing Intern, Brilliant Light Publishing

Monkey By The Sea is a captivating story written by Jessica L. Gervais that encourages children to embrace and appreciate the unique. Through the clever narrative of a little monkey who lives on a beach – not in a jungle – Gervais introduces the mature concepts of inclusion and diversity through a joyful and light-hearted beach-themed format.

With animated examples like eating fish from a coconut dish, making sand castles, and swimming deep in the ocean, this monkey is different than others. When he begins to wonder what kind of monkey he is, his mom comes to the rescue to remind him of what makes him special.

This imaginative idea is of placing a beloved monkey into a new environment to depict that worry of not belonging. The illustrations consist of crisp outlines breaking up the primary color palettes and cheeky facial expressions. Amusing details - like the crab giving a hint of side eye - are enjoyable additions to the book. The curves and swirls of the clouds mixed with the clear blue sky offer a consistency to the images that allow readers to ground themselves in this world of monkeys, beaches, and self-love.

“Different is good and that is how it should be.

It makes everything unique just like you and me.”

There is a poetic lyrical rhyme in this story, which is appreciated in the context of children’s books that often all read the same. Children who love memorizing stories will likely grab onto this one quickly – and parents can feel good about training little ones to include others, especially if they seem different.

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