Now she has given us this short book of a collection of nature essays that is just a bit more than that. Interwoven into her observations and appreciations of catalpa trees, fireflies, narwhals, newts, Cactus Wrens, and saguaro cactus are reflections on her own existence and on her experience of growing up as a "brown girl" in America. Nezhukumatathil is a poet who has published four collections of poems to some renown. And that is how she and her husband and their two young sons ended up in Oxford, Mississippi, where she is a professor of English and writing at the University of Mississippi. It was for this reason that, as an adult, she turned her gaze southward. She learned enough to realize that she preferred to live in an area where winters were not quite as harsh as in some of the eastern and midwestern areas where she had lived. She was always interested in the natural world and she was able to observe and gain some insight into it. When she was growing up, her family moved around quite a bit in this country and she got to know different regions of the country well. Her mother is Filipina and her father is Indian. This book was my first effort at achieving that challenge.Īimee Nezhukumatathil is the American daughter of immigrants. A challenge I have set for myself in 2021 is to read more nonfiction books.
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