Some books are gifts that seem to come just at the right time. I remember when I first read (actually listened to) Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, after finishing my PhD and I was in the middle of an identity crisis (was I a scientist or an artist? Neither or both?) and that book gave me a new deep appreciation and curiosity for the natural world, while also clearly articulating all the reasons why I had grown disillusioned with Western Science.
Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian just did something similar, by reframing through a scientific lens some questions about politics and identity that I have been grappling in the past few years. The fact that the book also grew in my ‘adopted ecosystem’ of the Hudson valley makes it all the more special to me.
I’m not in the business of writing reviews, and I’m not going to start now. The best way I know to show appreciation is by drawing. This book is filled with so many great quotes and scientific curiosities that I couldn’t settle on just one, so I have tried to gather all the kin folks mentioned in the book, around a metaphorical tree: fungi, lichens, slugs, snakes, crows, bowerbirds, cicadas, eels and some spring ephemerals (Arisaema triphyllum and Houstonia cerulea). If you want to know what each of these amazing beings can teach us please go read this book, right now. 
