Abbot Elementary students gathered for their first assembly of the school year to hear from Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of the New York Times bestseller “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants” and her new picture book “Bud Finds her Gift.”`
The visit came together through Literati Bookstore’s Lillie Reimer, who coordinated a school appearance while bringing Kimmerer to town for an evening event. AAPS library services department chairs Rachel Goldberg and Jennifer Colby connected Reimer with Joslyn Hunscher-Young, a social studies teacher and Diversity & Equity Lead at Community High School.
“I’m so excited for AAPS students to learn from Robin Wall Kimmerer,” said Hunscher-Young. “Her work as a scientist, writer, and Indigenous knowledge keeper is powerful, and I hope our students will learn more about how they can listen, reflect, and act in meaningful ways to help our communities and our Earth.”
Kimmerer, a Syracuse, New York resident and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, serves as a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology. She founded and directs the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.
Before her presentation, Kimmerer shared her hopes for the students. “What I really hope is that kids are invited to pay attention to use their amazing skills of paying attention to the natural world and to find out what is the gift that they have to give back to the natural world.”
Publishers Harper Collins describes her new book as “infused with warmth, humor, and insight, and beautifully illustrated by Naoko Stoop,” and notes that this first picture book inspires readers to “treasure nature’s generosity and the gifts each one of us can share with the Earth.”
During the assembly, Kimmerer told the students that when she was young, she was a nature-lover and avid reader who was later told she’d need to choose between being a scientist and a writer.
But she came to realize that curiosity, wonder, imagination and love are crucial to becoming both a scientist and a writer, so blending the two careers was natural, she said.
“It’s all about paying attention and noticing,” she said, noting that that’s what her book is all about.
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