Meet Blandine, the quirky foster care graduate whose mission goes far beyond her own need to survive and who observes life with an eye toward the absurd. This won the National Book Award for 2022 and deserves all its flowers.

“Braiding Sweetgrass” exists as a gift from the world of science and Indigenous genius. Robin Wall Kimmerer generously walks her readers through the natural world and the limitations of defining it through scientific language without the wisdom of words that people who’ve been here for thousands of years speak of such things as trees and bays and mushrooms. There’s a whole new appreciation for life, in its many forms, in these pages.