Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

So–I stayed up 10-20 minutes later than I should have last night to finish a book, and I was TOTALLY going to review that book this morning, but then today (because my youngest was home sick, just like yesterday and the day before) I finished the read-aloud I’ve been doing with my third grader, because she needs to do a book report on it this coming week, and so I’m reviewing that instead. (I don’t think that officially qualifies as a run-on sentence, but it’s not a terribly pretty one. Sorry.)

Another funny story–I’ve had Champion: The Comeback Tale of the American Chestnut Tree checked out of the library for ages and ages, and it wasn’t until this past month that it occurred to me that my youngest, who is rarely in the mood for read-alouds (except, you know, when she IS), loves science, and perhaps shorter nonfiction is the way to go with her. I tried her on the first chapter, she wanted to keep going with it, and her teacher even confirmed that it’s fine for her to do her nonfiction book report on a book I read aloud to her–and so, the rest is history.

I, on the other hand, don’t particularly love science; if I have to choose a branch of it to learn about, however, I’ll pick biology every time. (And run screaming in the opposite direction if chemistry ever comes up.) What really got me, though, is my childhood memories of walking in the woods with my father. I remember him stopping to point out American Chestnut stumps to me, and explaining that even though fresh saplings were growing out of them, they wouldn’t grow into adult trees because a blight had invaded American forests years before, killing off the species, and new growth would eventually fall prey to it. Even as a girl, I felt a pang for those little doomed saplings; my father pointed out the (relatively) long, narrow leaves to me, with their distinct saw-toothed edges, and they became one of the species of tree that I noticed and identified automatically during subsequent treks in those woods. I can’t remember how Sally Walker came onto my radar, but when it ultimately registered that she had a book about American Chestnuts–which apparently weren’t completely gone after all?–I checked it out and brought it home to hang out with my other library books.

At the start, Walker’s prose skewed young for me, which partly explains why the book sat on my shelf for so long; when I finally committed to it, however, I found that the young aspect seemed to peter out. (My guess is that her writing voice does skew young, but once you get into scientific theories, experiments, and programs, the vocabulary involved counteracts that tendency.) What was left was a tale of botany and genetics that fascinated me; scientists are approaching the problem from three distinct directions, and yet those directions will likely need to converge into a multipart solution if there are ever to be adult American Chestnut trees in our forests again. (When I say “our,” you understand, I’m speaking as a native Rhode Islander–there weren’t American Chestnuts here in Utah even before the blight.) My daughter listened, and even though she wiggled through parts, her clarifying questions made it clear that she understood most of what was going on.

Sadly, I don’t suppose Champion is quite the book to lure in science-haters; on the other hand, those interested in forests, trees, American history, and science in general will likely be engrossed by its story. In the meantime, I found it interesting–and it brought back precious memories of my pre-dementia father that I treasure.

Now we’ll see how my daughter does on her book report.