Teresa Letizia

Alarm bells are sounded daily concerning our environment: we are bombarded with disturbing news topics such as climate change bringing about hotter temperatures and ‘extreme heat events;’ increased wildfires; increased drought; warming, rising oceans; more severe storms; loss of species; pollinator decline; lack of nutritious foods; increased health risks; poverty and displacement; and so much more (from United Nations, www.un.org). It can be a lot to take in, so we tend to tune out much of it. When we do think about the challenges we are charged with as caretakers for our planet, we are concerned, but we’re not sure what we can do. . . Someone else will figure it out.

Dara McAnulty would ask each of us, however, to be that someone else and to attempt to find at least some small way to aid in ‘figuring it out.’ He too is burdened with the static of the world around us, but to a degree many of us have not experienced. Dara is an Irish teenager, environmental activist, and author of Diary of a Young Naturalist, who also happens to be on the autism spectrum. He shares with us his gift of a unique perspective–reminding us that each of us has one as well.

When he was diagnosed, Dara’s parents were told that he “will never be able to complete a comprehension.” That his book, which won the 2020 Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing, exists at all is a revelation. His memoir is one of a young man, wise beyond his years, who displays deep thinking and succinct writing. He is well versed in all things nature, and spills his hopes and fears and knowledge out onto the page with such lovely, lyrical honesty that we want to stand up and cheer, and then sit back and relax into his world. Dara’s diary is what we all need—a breath of fresh air.

He finds relief from his anxieties by reveling in the details of the natural world of his Northern Ireland home, and in serving as a herald for the needs of his beloved environment. He experiences it so profoundly that he can share minutia from the ecosystems of a variety of birds, insects, animals, plants, trees, landscapes, seascapes, etc., which he misses deeply when they are absent for a season, or when they have been destroyed altogether.

Dara writes, “I spy coltsfoot, bursts of sunshine from the disturbed ground. White-tailed bumblebees drink and collect hungrily. Dandelions and their allies in the daisy (or Asteraceae) family are often the first pollinating plants to flower in spring, and are incredibly important for biodiversity. I implore everyone I meet to leave a wild patch in their garden for these plants – it doesn’t cost much and anybody can do it.”

Here then is one way we can foray into our own activism, aiding biodiversity and providing for our pollinator friends, which also include birds, bats, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, wasps, small mammals, and most importantly, the bees, especially the prolific Native Bee. Many of these populations are in decline, which Pollinator.org attributes to a loss in feeding and nesting habitats, as well as pollution, the misuse of chemicals, disease, and changes in climatic patterns. “In some cases,” the site reports, ‘there isn’t enough data to gauge a response, and this is even more worrisome.”

This need for more data brings us to another featured book: The field guide to citizen science : how you can contribute to scientific research and make a difference. This primer is written by Darlene Cavalier and Catherine Hoffman, the minds behind Scistarter.org, an online citizen science hub where there are registered more than 3,000 projects, searchable by location, topic, age level, etc. This new movement means we can easily join a project and assist a scientist, finding that ‘one small way’ (or big way!) that Dara requested we do in aid of our mother Earth!

Besides the titles listed here, Smiley Library holds many more books on various topics concerning the natural world and the needs of the environment. Come explore the Library (or ask a librarian–we love to be of service!), or search our online catalog, find topics of interest to you, and discover how you can help.

If we each can do a little, together we can do a lot.

• Hope matters : why changing the way we think is critical to solving the environmental crisis
• The pollinator victory garden : win the war on pollinator decline with ecological gardening : how to attract and support bees, beetles, butterflies, bats, and other pollinators
• Where have all the bees gone? : pollinators in crisis
• 100 plants to feed the monarch : create a healthy habitat to sustain North America’s most beloved butterfly
• How to attract birds to your garden
• Trees in trouble : wildfires, infestations, and climate change
• How to love animals : in a human-shaped world
• The climate diet : 50 simple ways to trim your carbon footprint
• Can I recycle this? : a guide to better recycling and how to reduce single-use plastics **
• Plastic : an autobiography
• 
• The new climate war : the fight to take back the planet
• How to avoid a climate disaster : the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need
• The physics of climate change
• Unsettled : what climate science tells us, what it doesn’t, and why it matters
• Overheated : how capitalism broke the planet–and how we fight back
• Brave green world : how science can save our planet
• Disasterology : dispatches from the frontlines of the climate crisis
• Toxic legacy : how the weedkiller glyphosate is destroying our health and the environment
• How to prepare for climate change : a practical guide to surviving the chaos

2020

• What can I do? : my path from climate despair to action
• Our house is on fire : scenes of a family and a planet in crisis
• The fragile earth : writing from the New Yorker on climate change
• As the world burns : the new generation of activists and the landmark legal fight against climate change

**For more information on recycling in the City of Redlands, visit the City’s website,  https://www.cityofredlands.org/solid-waste-recycling-services

“A Day for Rememberin’: Inspired by the True Events of the First Memorial Day,” is a newly released book by children’s author Leah Henderson. The phrase, “a day for rememberin’”– just about says it all about the holiday we observe at the end of May each year. How many of us mark that day remembering what we’re asked to, and how many are even aware of the intention of the holiday?

This new addition to A.K. Smiley Public Library’s Young Readers’ Room will help new readers—and older ones—learn about the history of the day and why it’s important to observe it. Memorial Day is designated as a day to remember the countless number of our neighbors, friends, and relatives throughout history who have given up their lives in duty to their country while serving in the military.

Henderson’s inspiring account is of one of the first commemorations of Memorial Day — on May 1, 1865. She encountered the story through a photograph of a gathering for Decoration Day, as it was initially named. She tells it through the eyes of Eli, the 10-year-old son of a formerly enslaved man, who, with his family, is moved to honor those who had given their lives fighting for the freedom of his community in the conflict which had divided the United States.

The War Between the States is featured in another new addition to the Library, “The Black Civil War Soldier: a Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship.” Author Deborah Willis honors this often unrecognized group of Civil War soldiers using the medium of photography, the use of which was beginning to become widespread during the mid-1800s. Willis showcases a collection of portraits and personal ephemera exploring the lives of the Black Union soldiers, as well as those of other African Americans aiding in the struggle, from family members left behind to female spies, ultimately revealing their remarkable resilience.

Besides the volumes inspired by photographs and letters, authors have also conducted interviews with soldiers in some of our new books. Bestseller “Modern Warriors: Real Stories from Real Heroes” is an offering by FOX & Friends Weekend cohost Pete Hegseth. His is a collection of stirring narratives from fifteen individuals, including decorated Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, marines, Purple Heart recipients, combat pilots, a Medal of Honor recipient, and more.

From bestselling novelist James Patterson is the non-fiction volume, “Walk in My Combat Boots: True Stories from America’s Bravest Warriors.” Patterson and his team spoke with veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf, and Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Among other experiences, each relays how they dealt with threats of sudden death from snipers and improvised explosive devices, and how a majority of them suffer degrees of post-traumatic stress.

Of course Memorial Day is really about the soldiers who are not able to tell us their stories, the ones who didn’t make it home to us. The following two books get as close as we can to knowing them, through those who knew them best, their families. “Three Wise Men: a Navy Seal, a Green Beret, and How their Marine Brother Became a War’s Sole Survivor,” is written by brother Beau Wise (with Tom Sileo), a United States Marine Corps combat veteran who is the only known American service member to be pulled from the battlefield after losing two brothers in Afghanistan.

“Sacrifice: a Gold Star Widow’s Fight for the Truth” is a poignant memoir by Michelle Richmond Black who details her grief in becoming a gold-star widow. After losing her Green Beret husband, Bryan Black, when he died fighting the Islamic State in Niger in 2017, Michelle Black went looking for answers. Given few details about her husband’s death, Black conducted exclusive interviews with the survivors of her husband’s unit and delved into research of military leadership and accountability to learn what happened to him that final day and, finally, to know and understand his full sacrifice.

Here is a list of additional current titles available at the Library remembering soldiers. Pick up one to peruse and take “a day for rememberin’” the soldier’s sacrifice — the ultimate sacrifice, for fellow soldier, for country, and for each of us.

• The daughters of Kobani : a story of rebellion, courage, and justice
• The Greatest Beer Run Ever: a Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
• Ghost Flames: Life and Death in a Hidden War, Korea 1950-1953
• I Marched with Patton: a Firsthand Account of World War II alongside One of the U.S. Army’s Greatest Generals
• Facing the Mountain: a True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II
• Inferno: the True Story of a B-17 Gunner’s Heroism and the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History
• Whatever It Took: an American Paratrooper’s Extraordinary Memoir of Escape, Survival, and Heroism in the Last Days of World War II
• The York Patrol: the Real Story of Alvin York and the Unsung Heroes Who Made Him World War I’s Most Famous Soldier
• A Thousand May Fall: Life, Death, and Survival in the Union Army (an account of German immigrant soldiers)

We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.

– Martin Luther King Jr.

This week we observe the birthday and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The renowned civil rights leader, who would have been 92 on January 15, was assassinated in 1968, at the height of his mission to further the civil rights cause through nonviolent resistance.

Over half a century later, the legacies of Dr. King, and those of his contemporaries of the civil rights era, continue to inspire us. This recently published scholarship is one example: “The sword and the shield: the revolutionary lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.” It is one of the hundreds of books to be found in the New Book collection at A.K. Smiley Public Library.

Author of the book, Peniel E. Joseph, a professor of history and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a dual biography of the two leaders. He sets out to prove that Americans’ understanding over the years of the beliefs and actions of the men has become distilled. Joseph asserts that we have come to think of King solely as a pacifist, and of Malcolm X, strictly as a radical revolutionary. He concludes, however, that each man, both of whom were assassinated at the age of 39 within three years of each other, came to learn from the other’s philosophies and incorporated aspects of each other’s beliefs into his own. Joseph asserts, “Martin Luther King Jr.’s promotion of nonviolence as a shield against Jim Crow’s denial of black citizenship sharpened Malcolm’s political sword, placing them in a conversation that would continue beyond death.”

A young contemporary of Dr. King’s, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia’s fifth district, who died last summer after serving 33 years in the House of Representatives, saw King as one of his teachers in the practice of nonviolence in his civil rights work. A biography of Lewis by Jon Meacham, published in 2020, “His truth is marching on: John Lewis and the power of hope,” is also included in Smiley’s New Book collection. Lewis met King at age 18 and eventually became one of the “Big Six” leaders of the groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, calling for an end to racism.

Both Lewis and King were contemporaries of Rosa Parks who, with her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala. bus in 1955, has become an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She collaborated with civil rights leaders, including King, and her one act of resistance led to the bus boycott by Montgomery’s Black community. Continuing for over a year, the boycott eventually lead to the federal court decision which deemed bus segregation as unconstitutional. “Rosa Parks: in her own words,” also available in the New Book section of the Library, is a fascinating and intimate look at Parks’ experiences. Until very recently her personal papers, kept by the Library of Congress, were unavailable to the public. Take a look at the small volume and see, in her own handwriting, what she thought and felt about the era in which she lived, as well as one hundred photographs from her collection.

If the subject of the civil rights movement and these titles interest you, you may want to investigate another biography of Malcolm X currently out, “The dead are arising : the life of Malcolm X” by Les Payne, and the DVD documentary, “John Lewis : good trouble,” released last year and directed by Dawn Porter. You’ll find both here at Smiley Library.

If you’d like to check out these or other Library items, you may do with our Books to Go curbside service. For more information please visit our website, www.akspl.org, or call 909-798-7565.