Caroline Fraser

I would give this book a lot more than 5 stars if I could.

This book was SO much more than I thought it would be. I thought it would be a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Which should have been enough, actually! I love LIW; I have read all of her books (and several of her daughter's books) as a child. Read them, re-read them. Read them again to my Mom when I was an adult and she had dementia. I made a display in my grade school library about her books. I made her gingerbread recipe. My Mom show more made me a "prairie girl" dress and sunbonnet, ala LIW, to wear for Halloween. I looked up her books in the catalog at the Library of Congress when I was a girl to make sure I hadn't missed any. I made my parents take me to Mansfield, Missouri, to see Rocky Ridge, and as an adult, I have been to Pepin, Wisconsin, and Burr Ridge, Iowa. I didn't like the television series as a girl because it wasn't faithful to the books (where was Pa's beard? And Jack was a bulldog!, etc.). But it has been a long time since I really thought about the books, and I honestly thought this book would be a bit of a re-hashing of stories told in her books, perhaps with some of the controversy surrounding the book that I have read about over the years.

This book does provide a detailed, well-referenced history of her life (and her daughter's as well), but it is SO much more than this. There is so much history in this book, far beyond LIW's personal history. A ton of politics, too, which makes me understand how things really haven't changed that much in the last hundred ways. It is about truth, fiction, and the difference in our hearts and minds. It is about families, the environment, and about the struggles of farmers (and Native Americans) then and now. It is about the yearning of individuals to be self-sufficient, while still needing others, including, yes, sometimes, the government.

This book is highly relevant for any American today, far beyond those who read the Little House books. show less

A good, if grueling and difficult read. The author is a Seattle native and thus grew up with the knowledge that her part of the country was home to a very large number of nation's most notorious serial killers. The area was also (and this is not unique to PNW) heavily poisoned and despoiled by the mining and smelting industry, which released enormous amounts of toxins like lead and arsenic into the air and water. The author argues that there is a connection. She goes into great detail about show more the history of the polluting industries in Oregon and Washington, and zeroes in on Tacoma, where a giant smelter operated at peak capacity for decades. Ted Bundy grew up in Tacoma. That fact is not proof but she does a lay out a damn good case that constant exposure to lead early in life can cause brain damage that could result in violent urges. Also, it is quite interesting that since the removal of lead from gas and paint, the incidence of Ted Bundy/Green River Killer types appears to have greatly decreased. A caveat: do not read if you would be upset by detailed descriptions of violent crime. show less

I was initially charmed by the title of this book. An image of a giant Johnny Appleseed skipping across the continents sprinkling wolves, elephants, tigers, frogs, birds, monkeys and spiders came to mind. But rewilding the world isn't necessarily manually replacing all the natural elements that man -- through chemicals, hunting, agriculture and/or "progress" -- has destroyed. Rather it is letting nature rewild itself. Letting the earth heal in its own mysterious and infinetely complicated show more way. And it apparently does. Or at least can, with a jump start from us. But doing that isn't as easy as it sounds. It requires integration with some key areas: geographical, political, emotional and human, at the very least. But it's not impossible. And the key, according to the author, is to think big, start small and involve the people who actually live on the land.

The most startling idea I encountered in this book was that we may have crippled the earth so thoroughly that "we may be erasing the process of evolution itself." That's profoundly frightening. But this book is not all doom and gloom. It's about hope and progress and the beginnings of success. It's a step forward. It serves as an introduction to the idea of rewilding and offers encouragement and information to those who may already know of or be a part of the process.

The book is divided geographically and includes maps of existing and proposed parks and corridors. There is an extensive section on the continent of Africa, including the dilemma of balancing extreme humanitarian issues with pressing environmental ones. I especially enjoyed the section where the author accompanied two married graduate students as they collected data on crocodiles in Namibia. This is a comprehensive, sane and well-written account of ongoing and future global conservation efforts. show less

This was a trip. Fraser wove together several different elements in this book, industrial and environmental history of the PNW (Seattle Metro specifically), explored the correlation of an the effects to being exposed to dangerous levels of toxins as an added layer to potential influences of the high amounts of serial killers from the area.

This was heavy, having a foundation of knowledge (but not having gone too deep into Bundy), there was so much more than I retained if I had heard it show more before (Ill say I havent). Thats just one, Fraser incorporates many. Theres a memoir aspect as well, being alive and local to a lot of these events.

Having lived in the Seattle region, loved the hiking trails and have been to so many of the referenced places, I find myself reflecting, how many ghosts have I passed on those trails? How many are still waiting to be discovered? show less