Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully Written Sanity
Review: Since the Twin Towers crumbled, very few have had the courage to stand up in the face of the Jingoistic, shallow patriotism and say, there is something terribly wrong here! Ms. Kingsolver, writing beautifully as always, manages to make hard fisted moral statements sound like poetry, but nonetheless she says some things that need to be said, and, most of all, need to be heard.Whether it is debunking the nonsense that it is wrong for other countries to attack the US, but fair and just for the US to attack them back, or telling the truth out loud about the US involvement in setting up the Taliban's power in the first place, she tells it truly from her heart, and she tells it right and well. She addresses many topics in this wonderful book of essays, from the death penalty to poetry, to dreadful television, and she manages each time to stand outside of the mainstream point of view and look objectively, and from that stance, to point out the absurdity, and to point out a saner direction. Ms. Kingsolver says peace not war, love not hate, sharing not profit, and these ideas are not new, just stated newly and beautifully at a time when they need so desparately to be heard.
This was a wonderful book and I wish everyone would read it and let it in.
Rating:
Summary: Saying All The Things I Want to Say
Review: I have been a Barbara Kingsolver fan since I picked up the first book I read by her. But collection of essays has topped all of her books. She has the ability and the courage, say what a lot of us 'patriotic' Americans want to say but can't articulate it in the right way. Each essay touched me in such a way I can't explain, but found myself saying over and over, "Yes! Exactly!"I just want to thank her for this wonder work of art and all the other hours of enjoyment she has provided with her books and essays. I only hope that she is on this earth a long, long time, and will continue to share her tremendous talent with the rest of the world. Barbara
Rating: 
Summary: Better at biology than politics
Review: I always enjoy Barbara Kingsolver's writings, be they fiction or non, so when I heard that Small Wonders was available, I found myself a copy as quickly as possible. Small Wonders is Kingsolver's second book of essays, but instead of focusing largely on environmental issues as she has done in the past, she has included a number of pieces of a political bent, stemming from the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center. Her writing is clear and fluent and readable as always. But I had a difficult time getting through this one, because -- and I'll admit this is a personal quirk that others do not share -- I find I have little patience with people who use September 11th to prove their own points. For instance, in one essay in which she talks about what the American flag stands for, Kingsolver is distressed because the children at her daughter's school wear red, white and blue one day in memory of the people who died, and because people are buying flags rather than maps at the local flag and map shop. She is speaking out against intolerant behavior, which is fine, but is seems here that she is equating buying a flag with beating up someone in a turban. She is ascribing motives to people that she has no way of knowing. She says she wasn't in New York or D.C. on that day, but that she knew people who were; she didn't know anybody who was killed, but she knew somebody who could have been. (I'm sorry, but it's just not the same thing -- no one could possibly believe that a few hours of panic are equivalent to a loss for a lifetime.) So using that as her basis of authority she compares the death tolls in Manhattan to those racked up in other countries during famines or natural disasters, as if that lessens what happened in the United States. She completely ignores the after-effects of what happened here, including the thousands and thousands of people who have been thrown out of work. Again, this is my personal take but: Does she truly comprehend the pain caused that day? If she did, would she really use it as a personal soap box?
Rating:
Summary: she found the words I could not find
Review: I love the way Barbara Kingslover writes. Not only does she often open my mind but my heart as well. In fact, she cracks open the shell around my heart and leaves it bear and open to feel again. After September 11th I found I had no words to express my fears, saddness and my hope for the future
of our country and for our world, but she found that way and through her essays she left a trail of white stones in the forest for me to follow. For that I am deeply thankful.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: What a good book. Barbara Kingsolver is such a wonderful writer. She is thoughtful, so intelligent and insightful. I learned alot from this book. I've read The Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer and thoroughly loved both of them. She is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. I will be buying this book for gifts. I think anyone who wants to read to learn or for entertainment, will love this book. What a mind she has. I'm overwhelmed by her ability to move me, and to make me think more deeply about the world in which we live.
Rating:
Summary: Diversity, Balance & Wholeness
Review: This book is a jewel, a small wonder in its own right for all of us who love to read and think. Barbara Kingsolver does not denounce those who hold views opposing hers as being anti-American or elitist. Rather, she refuses to respond to her most virulent critics in kind, preferring to write inclusively, generously, and hopefully. At the same time, she gives a clarion call to all of us to take the blinders off, to question our priorities and practices, to hold our values up to the light of common sense. She does present her strong opinions and backs them up with reason, examples, science, and all the quiet passion she can muster. She does use her gift of language to do her darnedest to persuade. She does insist on her right and her duty to take a public stand for what she believes. She reminds us that the practice of nonviolent dissent driven by principle is an honorable one. There's plenty of inspiration here for each of us to do what we can to conserve our planet's resources and to preserve the diversity and balance that exist in the natural world. Even so, some of my favorite essays in this collection are the more personal ones: "Lily's Chickens", a letter to her mother, and a rollicking exploration of the trouble with writing about sex, in English, at least. Putting these personal topics alongside impassioned pleas on behalf of endangered species, or arguing in favor of buying as much of your food as possible from local farmers' markets, is Kingsolver's way of combining the personal and the political. By including very personal subjects alongside arguments against genetic engineering of crops, and by pitting the events of 9/11 against the miracle of a bear rescuing a human baby in Iran, she echoes through her writing the diversity and wholeness that she advocates and finds sacred. I read and love Barbara Kingsolver's novels, but I too am partial to her essays. I second the notion that she is a national treasure. Read this book, and pass it on.
Rating:
Summary: small changes
Review: Ok, your life is busy and you drive a lot and you buy that 99 cent burger. Kingsolver doesn't condemn you. She just looks at your life with kind understanding eyes, points out the disasterous unkind consequences of millions and millions of people living that way, and suggests that we think twice before we consume. She's helping us make sure that we get value, real value, out of what we buy. And real value is found in community and connection, not in that pair of shoes that perfectly matchs that new dress. In the quality of what we read, not in how fast our computer is. In a sense of stewardship for the earth and our grandchildren, in a sense of pace, not in hurry-hurry-hurry. These principles apply whatever our income. As a wealthy American, Barbara Kingsolver sets a good example by consuming much less than she has the means to. Yes, she flies in jet planes. But not as much as she could, and not frivolously. That's all she's asking us to do. Just take a deep breath, look around, look at ourselves, and slow down. "In relationships, slow is fast and fast is slow." And everything depends on relationships, personal and national.
Rating: 
Summary: The hypocrisy is mind-boggling
Review: Although 'nuff has been said by other reviewers on the subject of Kingsolver's hypocrisy -- I'd like to point out a couple more quaint symptoms. Kingsolver appears to passionately believe that if America is hated by somebody, then it's time for America to examine its soul and change its behavior until it finally pleases the haters. In the next breath, she complains about the hate mail she gets and assures us -- and herself -- that it must be sent by people who haven't read her (only *about* her) and don't know her, because, well, if they got to know her, they just couldn't help loving her. People who hate America have a point, people who hate her are ignorant redneck psychos. Hmm... Another reason why this book doesn't deserve more than an E for Effort is that Kingsolver makes an awful lot of lofty claims on environmental subjects because she's "a trained biologist," having majored in biology in college. Her take on genetically engineered crops actually sounds interesting and convincing until one looks at the credits in the book and sees that that particular essay was based almost entirely on somebody else's essay in Harper's magazine -- no more a scientific journal than, say, The New Yorker. And when you decide to learn more about the subject (anathema to breathy eloquence like Kingsolver's)and check junkscience.com, you find out that one guy who swears by genetic engineering in his crops is that ol' farmer, Jimmy Carter. Not exactly a man you'd call a blinded-by-his-greed-and-hatred-of-the-environment conservative. Considering she never actually practiced as a biologist except in her vegetable garden, I'd just like to know what Kingsolver's GPA in college was.
Rating:
Summary: If you want to stay asleep, don't read this book!
Review: I am a long-time fan of Kingsolver's work, enjoying both her writing style and her biologically accurate depiction of the natural world. I think this is a beautiful book that I have already sent to a friend, and highly recommend to anyone interested a better world for all peoples and all species. She approaches her material with reverence, zeal, and laced with personal anecdotes that brings understanding to simple things like how eating bananas and global warming could be related. I read the reviews of people who found this book too preachy or pedantic. Yes, it is uncomfortable to realize that our own personal habits and attitudes are contributing to world problems - it would be easier to find some kind of external fix rather than the daunting task of changing our own individual lifestyle. And, in many circles it is unpopular to question ANY of our government's programs - even though such questioning was one of the main tenets in founding a democracy. But, to me, it is appropriate that she use her fame as a novelist to shed light on what she sees as the sources of society's ills. I admire her integrity to speak her truth in an effort to wake us up out of a collective stupor. She is not the only person to be questioning the American "consciousness" since 9/11, but she does so with such an approachable and occasionally heartbreaking style that you can't help but be moved. "Small Wonder" would be ideal for a weekly group discussion. It is a compelling read, while offering glimmers of hope throughout, and a sense that our individual lives and actions do indeed matter.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book only if you enjoy hypocricy.
Review: Read this book only if you enjoy hypocricy This book reads much like an expanded version of "what I did on my summer vacation," not the "surprising and hopeful" stories I was promised. Depending on your disposition, you will either find Ms. Kingsolver amusingly naïve or downright annoying for her simpleton solutions to world problems, as well as her hypocrisy. If you have the misfortune to be listening to the audio version of this book, you will also get to "enjoy" her Forest Gump draw. She will attempt to present herself as a person who enjoys only the simple pleasures of life and conservative of natural resources. She then goes on to discuss her multiple homes and trips to South America, Japan, Mexico, etc. She states that rain forests should be protected while tramping through one. Most appallingly, she blames the terrorist actions on 9-11-01 on the United States!! She feels that by not giving enough to poor countries, we bring terrorism on ourselves. She chooses not to mention that the U.S. is one of the largest donators of aid to poor countries and only insults her own country for not giving a large enough percentage of its per capita income. Her solution is to give more and "bring down the walls" around the U.S. As a wealthy person herself, one must ask home much Ms. Kingsolver gives to the poor and whether she had "brought down the walls" around her home and invited the homeless to live with her. Her idea of a response to the terrorists' acts is to remain silent. One has to wonder if that would be her solution if a relative of hers had been murdered on 9-11 or if she had the understanding to foresee that the attacks would continue without action on the part of the U.S. Throughout the book, we are constantly told that there is an alternative to our current was, however, not ONCE is a workable alternative suggested.
In one story Ms. Kingsolver actually states that she would have liked to live Europe, but chose to move back to the U.S., in essence to straighten us out. I for one would like to say, please, Ms. Kingsolver, move back to Europe! Also, as a note to her: while she claims to be raising her children in the most "perfect" way, without tv (apparently a great sin to watch!), she had a 3 year old who stated that she wishes she was never born. Here's a tip - any child that young with a death wish needs a therapist, not to mention a more responsible parent. This book left me both angry at Ms. Kingsolver for her holier-than-thou hypocrisy, as well as sad for her pathetic inability to grasp the world issues that she attempts to tackle.
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