Bookmarks

Kevin O’Connor reviews five new Vermont page-turners:

Identifying Ferns the Easy Way

Lynn Levine

As the first female consulting forester to work in New England, Lynn Levine has a 40-year history of navigating the great outdoors. But the East Dummerston educator is good with small things, too. Having shepherded thousands of people into the woods to share her love of nature, she has authored the new book “Identifying Ferns the Easy Way: A Pocket Guide to Common Ferns of the Northeast.” The 74-page Heartwood Press paperback, which features “very user-friendly” terminology as well as illustrations by fellow Vermonter Briony Morrow-Cribbs, is reaping its own laurels. “Gardeners, hikers, and naturalists all need this elegantly simple guide,” longtime PBS television “The Victory Garden” host Roger B. Swain says. “The lineage of these plants is ancient, their charms immutable. These pages bring their identities into the light, a gift indeed.”

The Benefits of Being an Octopus

Ann Braden signs copies of her first novel, “The Benefits of Being an Octopus.”

When Brattleboro resident Ann Braden was growing up, “I was shy and sensitive.” But after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., the teacher turned mother stood up and spoke out to found the firearms safety group Gun Sense Vermont. “Sometimes it’s hard,” she recalls of the resulting social media backlash from some weapon owners, “especially when you’ve been told your voice is not worth much.” But the experience inspired her to write her first novel, “The Benefits of Being an Octopus,” about a young person who, like the author, found her way forward. In a starred review, School Library Journal calls the 256-page Sky Pony hardcover a “heartbreaking, beautifully written book…that can help build empathy and understanding.”

Pioneer Species

Although Ross Thurber wrote his first poem in eighth grade he didn’t find the inspiration for his debut collection, “Pioneer Species,” until he took over his family’s Lilac Ridge organic farm in West Brattleboro. “I am a poor king; bird on a branch/stone picker, woodsman, herdsman,” begins his opening poem “Ground Truthed,” which turns out to be about spiritual wealth. Subsequent pages of the 128-page Green Writers Press paperback explore the riches of spring, summer, fall and winter. “Reading Pioneer Species,” friend and fellow writer Deborah Lee Luskin says, “is the distillation of a year on the farm and the discoveries of meaning found in metaphor, repetition, and nature — nature found both outdoors and within the human heart.”

Of Grief, Garlic and Gratitude

Vermonter Sam Francoeur is remembered in his mother Kris’s memoir “Of Grief, Garlic and Gratitude: Returning to Hope and Joy from a Shattered Life.”

When Vermonter Kris Francoeur’s 20-year-old son Sam died of an accidental drug overdose in 2013, she turned to Facebook to tell friends and family about her grief. Surprisingly, when she saw a rainbow in a sunny sky the day after his memorial service, she also began to chronicle her gratitude. “In the midst of great sadness,” she posted, “can come a moment of great beauty.” Six years later, the Addison County mother is sharing her story in the new memoir “Of Grief, Garlic and Gratitude: Returning to Hope and Joy from a Shattered Life.” “I feel it is my responsibility,” Francoeur writes in the 268-page Morgan James paperback, “to be one of the many faces of the impact of the opiate addiction, while also pushing myself and those around me to find joy where they can, and to love as fiercely and openly as possible.”

Did Tiger Take the Rain?

Charles Norris-Brown

Writer, illustrator, and anthropologist Charles Norris-Brown lives in the Green Mountains of Vermont, but his concern for both the endangered animals and people who live at the base of the Himalayas half a world away inspired his children’s book “Did Tiger Take the Rain?” Published by the Brattleboro-based Green Writers Press, the 34-page hardcover explains the human-wrought ecological threats to some of the best-known tiger reserves of India and Nepal. The title, released in 2016, recently gained new life through Pratham Books, India’s largest nonprofit children’s book publisher, which has translated and distributed more than 30 million books to impoverished and remote communities. For its part, Canal Street Art Gallery in Bellows Falls will present Norris-Brown’s original paintings and drawings in the solo show “Listen to the Wind,” which opens May 15, with an opening reception on May 17.