Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver, Faber and Faber, 拢12, ISBN 0571215769 Reviewed by Maggie McDonald
WHITE letters chalked on a blackboard in Sri Lanka are the first things I remember reading. The pleasure of deciphering that first word (cat, of course) remains with me to this day. By age 11, I read a book a day, and at 14 I was being tested by an irritated teacher and school librarian who demanded proof that I was actually reading my library books.
But there are only so many authors even the most avid of readers can digest, and some evaded me. Barbara Kingsolver was one. I had her filed in a 鈥渢ree-hugger: must avoid鈥� category. Friends kept recommending her and a few years ago, I read my first Kingsolver and ditched my ill-founded prejudice. She鈥檚 a biologist by training and a wonderful writer. Possessed of an analytical mind, she鈥檚 capable of writing with real passion; a rare find. If you haven鈥檛 tried her yet, do.
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Small Wonder is Kingsolver the essayist, elegant and insightful, and a great place to begin before you tackle her backlist. She wrote this collection after 11 September. Here you鈥檒l find the San Pedro river on the edge of survival, the energy bill for a five-calorie strawberry, GATT and bananas, and Darwin in all his complexity summed up in four clear paragraphs.