Winter 1996 - Issue Number 38
Winter Reading
by Ben Hansen
Galaxies and Other Deep-Sky Objects
National Audubon Society Pocket Guide
Alfred A. Knopf, 1995
The Home Planet
edited by Kevin W. Kelley
Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1988
Material World: a Global Family Portrait
by Peter Menzel
Sierra Club Books, 1994
Johnny's Selected Seeds (catalog)
Albion, Maine, 04910
If you read one book per week this winter, and if we have another winter like last year, then you're going to need at least twenty books. Better stock up now, because a good stash of reading material can be as vital to your winter survival as an adequate supply of firewood, blankets and pistachios.
The Audubon Society's pocket guide, Galaxies and Other Deep-Sky Objects, carries to new heights their tradition of fine nature guides. Instead of flipping through pages of mushrooms or birds of the eastern region, this little book treats you to a cosmic hike through the universe.
The photos are fantastic, and the text is loaded with juicy tidbits of information. For instance, did you know that some stars are bigger than planet Jupiter's orbit? Me neither.
I also learned that Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object visible to the naked eye. When you spot that fuzzy patch in the night sky, you're looking at a spiral galaxy containing over 500 billion stars, two and a half million light-years away.
Stuff like this boggles the imagination, and sometimes in mid-winter we need a good boggling.
The Home Planet, by Kevin W. Kelley, is a big coffee table book with full-page photos of Earth, paired with quotes of astronauts trying to describe their experiences in space.
Dozens of astronauts from a dozen countries share their thoughts, and many of them sound like poets. Again and again these space explorers say things like, "Planet Earth must be defended like a holy relic."
The view from space has a way of turning astronauts into instant environmentalists. Many remark that they were shocked, the first time seeing Earth from space, to suddenly realize what a thin layer of atmosphere it is that surrounds our planet. The old phrase "the sky is the limit" begins to take on new meaning.
How ironic that the space program, a colossal expenditure of resources devoted mostly to military objectives, should inspire such a profound sense of environmental awareness.
The photos, by the way, are breathtaking. There's even a shot of Lake Michigan shoreling from Point Betsie to Charlevoix, including both Manitou Islands.
"Look, here's where we are!" I exclaimed to my wife, as I pointed to Green and Duck Lakes. I felt like the astronaut who recalled, "The first day in space, we pointed to our country. The second day, to our continent. By the third day, we just pointed to Earth&emdash;our home."
Peter Menzel's Material World is another coffee table book with a unique concept. Photographers travel to thirty countries to take portraits of typical families. Each family is photographed in front of their home, after bringing all their belongings outside with them.
As you can imagine, the piles of material goods vary greatly from nation to nation. The portraits are accompanied with interviews, along with national profiles including statistics like per capita income and life expectancy.
When asked, "What are your wishes for the future?" the family from Kuwait ($16,380 per capita) said they wanted more money and more leisure time for vacations. The family from Ethopia ($123) said they wished for a second set of clothes, and peace in the world.
The book contains photo sections entitled "Televisions of the World", "Meals of the World", and even "Toilets of the World". It's interesting to contrast the bathroom of the Kuwaitis with the grove of trees used by the Ethopians.
My complaint with this book is that it may give a distorted view of how the world's wealth is distributed. The average annual income of the thirty families in this book is well over $6,000. In reality, billions of human beings alive today are surviving on less than $400 per year.
Still, Material World is a great book because it makes you think. Sierra Club Books recently published a companion volume, Women in the Material World, which I also recommend.
If you find yourself slipping into the winter blahs, a foolproof way to pull yourself out is by planning your spring garden. Johnny's Selected Seeds is one of the bes resources to help with the task.
Johnny's photos of vegetables, flowers, herbs and grains are attractive, but not overblown like a lot of garden catalogs. The catalog is packed with useful information, including words of encouragement for composting, cover crops, and other organic techniques.
Johnny deals almost exclusively in seeds, even hard-to-find seeds like pennyroyal and licorice. Start seeds on your windowsill in early March and behold, you've shortened the winter season by at least a whole month!
The cover photo of last year's catalog featured one of my favorite flowers, the cosmos, named for the Greek word meaning "universe, order, harmony." I'd glance at that seed catalog, then I'd thumb through my Audubon guide to the cosmos and I'd feel at peace, even as the temperature outside dipped below zero.
Happy winter reading!
Ben Hansen is a storyteller and peace activist who spent three years in Mexico, building houses with Habitat for Humanity. He and his wife now live in Interlochen, and they thank the friendly staff at the Interlochen Public Library for helping them survive last winter.\
Raising Peaceful Children in a Violent World
by Nancy Lee Cecil
with Patricia L. Roberts
LuraMedia; 1995
Every day we hear stories of violence&emdash;in homes, the workplace, in communities, and of course, between nations. Growing up, most of us are not taught techniques of conflict resolution or methods for parenting in ways that foster peaceful solutions to conflict. So, even though my parenting days are over, I was intrigued to find in the mailbox the book entitled, Raising Peaceful Children in a Violent World. This book is a very practical, hands-on handbook for parents, teachers and child care workers who want to offer a peaceful alternative to violence when dealing with conflict. After each section which describes a principle of non-violent conflict resolution, examples are sited from everyday life situations. This book is clear, direct and easy to understand.
The author begins by naming the basic goals in raising peaceful children:
The book is divided into sections:
Peaceful Communication:
This section covers suggestions and activities to help families to become more affirming towards each family member, gives guidelines for more peaceful ways of communicating within the family and offers techniques for conflict resolution, including conducting a "family peace meeting". It offers ten responses to potentially violent situations that can be used within the family or in other situations outside the home, and suggests a set of peace compatible discpline strategies for parents. The section closes with a chapter on honoring diversity and counter-acting sex-role stereotypes.
Peaceful Entertainment:
This section includes tips for counteracting the negative effects of television and offers a host of alternatives to warlike games and toys, with a strong emphasis on the value of children's literature for nurturing peaceful attitudes. A book list divided by topic and age with a short summary of each is most helpful.
Peaceful Relationships:
This section begins with a whole series of family activities that can be used as positive reinforcement to honor and celebrate peaceful ways of being&emdash;activities like creating a mailbox for positive family peace notes to family members, rewarding peaceful attitudes and behavior with a "peace medal", and using a "dialogue notebook" to communicate feelings. The final section of the book covers activities that promote peace beyond the family -- in the neighborhood, school and on the global level.
The Appendix:
Several sections in the back list further readings for adults and children, again divided by age and topic.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who deals with children. I sure wish I had had it when I was raising my children. Now that I'm a grandmother I plan to give copies of the book to my chidren as they take on the role of parents.
--Sally Van Vleck
Return to the Index of Synapse 38, Winter 1996