Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults is a special edition of the 2013 best-selling book by Potawatomi botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer. Adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith, a Canadian children’s author of Cree and Lakota descent, this book merges Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and personal memoir to explore the relationship between humans and other species on Earth. Major themes in the book include The Interconnectedness of Life on Earth, The Importance of Storytelling in Indigenous Communities, and The Injustice of the American Government’s Treatment of Indigenous Americans. The original Braiding Sweetgrass won the 2014 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award and was named “Best Essay Collection of the Decade” by Literary Hub. In 2022, Kimmerer won a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship.

This review is based on the 2022 Lerner Publishing eBook edition.

Summary

The opening section, “Meeting Sweetgrass,” introduces the book’s theoretical frameworks. Kimmerer invites readers to remember that they are in relationship with all living beings and the Earth. She proposes a new pronoun, ki (plural kin) to describe living beings and inanimate objects imbued with sacred spirit.