It is a collection of love letters to plants and our earth. The language is so beautiful. Through words, the author takes you to walk in the rain, to make maple syrup, to help salamanders cross the busy street, to clean the pond, to weave a basket, and so many other things in the nature. Plants and animals in nature are not just objects, they are friends to the author. You can feel the pure friendship. You want to make friends with them too. After I read the book, I saw the world in a new perspective.
I learned the meaning of ‘Reciprocity’. There wouldn’t be animals nor humans if there were no plants. Plants are the only being that can transform the chemicals into energy we can consume. We all owe our mother earth and our food a ‘Thank you very much’ and we need to think about what can we do for our mother earth.
Really what did we do to our mother earth? We destroyed the forest to get more farmland or cover it with concrete, which caused thousands of species went extinction and climate change. We dig out fossil fuels and metals for our own use, which causes desertification and global warming. We pour our waste into the ocean, which causes reefs being bleached and balance being disrupted. And we keep doing it even we know we shouldn’t. We are punished by what we did and what we are doing. Extreme weather, wild fires, exhausted top soil, these are our punishment don’t you see? We keep taking from our planet earth to satisfy our needs, which is bottomless. What did we give back?

We all were taught to be grateful since we can remember things. But that gratefulness is only between our own species. We say thank you if you help me with something. How many of us have ever said thank you to our food, like vegetables, fruits, chicken, milk, beef? We take them for granted, every single day. Some of the food even end up in the trash cans. How many us have ever said thank you to the paper we use? It is made by trees. How many of us said thank you to the gas we put into our car? We only acknowledge our own, how much we have achieved, how great we are. We are truly the most selfish species on the planet.
I hope everybody reads this book. You will practice ‘Never take more than half’ and “Reciprocity’ everyday, which the Indigenous people have been practicing for thousand years. Only we can do something to reverse the damage we did on our planet earth. Our realization and action decide our future. If we don’t act now it will be too late.
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