Small Wonder: Essays
- InspirationalI found Barbara Kingsolver's "A Small Wonder" inspirational. It's the first time I've finished a book and immediately turned it over and read it again! Ms. Kingsolver is a perceptive storyteller and the way she portrays everyday experiences sheds an illuminating perspective on a better way to experience life - from how we use resources, to how we raise our kids, to how we relate to others. It's a wonderful guidebook for those who are concerned about peace, family and the environment. Everyone should read it because we should all be concerned about these things!
Rating:
- Not a fun read, but a GREAT readWe just discussed this book at our book club and it was described as "broccoli". It's a book you should read, but isn't one you exactly race back to reading any change you get. This book makes you think, which is great in modern day culture. We discussed the book for 2 hours and didn't even cover at least 1/2 the topics we could have discussed. WARNING: If read with an open mind, it can lead you to make small changes in your life and your community and appreciate all the small wonders in your own life.
Rating:
- Reassurance That There Are Small Wonders and Hope In Post-9/11Barbara Kingsolver
somewhere outside of Tucson
or
somewhere in Appalachia
Dear Barbara,
Thank you. Keep writing! Although this one is not for sissies.
I feel that I can call you Barbara, because I have read most of your books, and, also, knowing you from your books, you would look over your shoulder if I addressed you as Ms. Kingsolver.
This book of essays predicated by events on September 11, 2001, is an outlet for so many of your passions for peace, humanity, justice, children, simplicity, your mother, nature, gardens and hummingbirds, to name a few. So many of them are also my passions, but it is a hard read. Then, so is living in the United States right now with the air filled with fear, anger and hate. As you write, "All of the promises of politicians, generals, madmen and crusaders that war can create peace have yet to be borne out."
You keep reasuring me and others throughout this book that there are small wonders and there is hope.
Your description of the miracle of a hummingbird building her nest outside your window made me gasp with awe. Such a sharing! And the reminder about the importance of diversity which follows sets down the dangers of the genetic engineering of foods so clearly.
"What Good is a Story?" had me marking passage after passage. You describe how I feel about your own fiction:
"I love fiction, strangely enough, for how true it is. If it can tell me someething I didn't already know, or maybe suspected but never framed quite that way, or never before had sock me so divinely in the solar plexus, that was a story worth the read."
and
"The business of fiction is to probe the tender spots of an imperfect world, which is where I live, write, and read."
I thank you for your writing, and I'm looking forward to your next book. Thank you, also, for donating the proceeds from "Small Wonder" to organizations helping to create hope and life in this imperfect world.
Hugs, Judith
by Judith Helburn
for StorycircleBookReviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Rating:
- Small Wonder cassette tapesThese are very inspiring essays by one of our most brilliant writers.If you have enjoyed her fiction, you will really like her voice (literally, as she reads her essays aloud)as an observer of our human condition on this planet.There is a particularly great take on the 911 catastrophe.
Rating:
- worst book i've ever readThis book was required reading for my advanced placement english class. I consider myself a lover of the written word. I dream of someday becoming a novelist, or at least an english teacher. It usually takes me 3-5 days to finish a book, especially a good book. It has taken me 2 months to read this book. It is not only boring, but often times repetetive. Barbara Kingsolver relates everything to September 11th. Granted, this was a tragic day for our country and should always be remembered. But I dont see why Ms. Kingsolver found it necessary to write a whole novel about it. I find even less necessary for this to be required reading. Every once in a while Ms. Kingsolver finds the need to express herself with words that are a little more complicated than need be. It was a less than pleasent read and I wouldnt recommend it to my worst enemy.
