Our National Parks by John Muir

I finished this book this afternoon; the plan is to suggest it as a nature reading option for the lightened version of AO's Year 11 along with Fabre's book about Caterpillars - choose one or the other. The Caterpillar book is lots more interesting, but the National Parks book has some real gems scattered throughout it. It tends to drag at times with descriptions of trees (you might call it a veritable detritus of description), so I think some students might find it slow going. Here's a bonus for those who wondered if the word "detritus" ever appeared anywhere other than the Jackson Browne song Casino Nation: John Muir uses it no less than four times in the last half of this book. Maybe he heard the song while he was in the middle of writing this book, looked it up, and to display his new knowledge, thought he'd cleverly and naturally work it into his text? No, probably not--that sounds more like something I'd do.

Here are some really nice quotes from the book:

chapter 4: "Going to the woods is going home; for I suppose we came from the woods originally . . . Here everything is hospitable and kind, as if planned for your pleasure, ministering to every want of body and soul. Even the storms are friendly and seem to regard you as a brother, their beauty and tremendous fateful earnestness charming alike. But the weather is mostly sunshine, both winter and summer and the clear sunny brightness of the park is one of its most striking characteristics. . . . the park is a paradise that makes even the loss of Eden seem insignificant."

various animal quotes from chapter 6:

"In my first interview with a Sierra bear we were frightened and embarrassed, both of us, but the bear's behavior was better than mine."

"(Snakes) will teach you that scales may cover as fine a nature as hair or feathers or anything tailored."

"Trout-fishing, regarded as bait for catching men, for the saving of both body and soul, is important, and deserves all the expense and care bestowed on it."

(Describing song birds in the redwood forests) "How romantic and beautiful is the life of this brave little singer on the wild mountain streams . . . No wonder he sings well, since all the air about him is music; every breath he draws is part of a song, and he gets his first music lessons before he is born; for the eggs vibrate in time with the tones of the waterfalls. Bird and stream are inseparable, songful and wild, gentle and strong,--the bird ever in danger in the midst of the stream's mad whirlpools, yet seemingly immortal. And so I might go on, writing words, words, words; but to what purpose? Go see him and love him, and through him as through a window look into Nature's warm heart."

quotes from chapter 9:

"In summer the days go by in almost constant brightness, cloudless sunshine pouring over the forest roof, while in the shady depths there is the subdued light of perpetual morning. The new leaves and cones are growing fast and make a grand show, seeds are ripening, young birds learning to fly, and with myriads of insects glad as birds keep the air whirling, joy in every wingbeat, their humming and singing blending with the gentle ah-ing of the winds; while at evening every thicket and grove is enchanted by the tranquil chirping of the blessed hylas, the sweetest and most peaceful of sounds, telling the very heart-joy of earth as it rolls through the heavens."

"One of the most interesting features of the grove is a small waterfall with a flowery, ferny, clear brimming pool at the foot of it. How cheerily it sings the songs of the wilderness, and how sweet it tones! You seem to taste as well as hear them, while only the subdued roar of the river in the deep cañon reaches up into the grove, sounding like the sea and the winds. So charming a fall and pool in the heart of so glorious a forest, fool pagans would have consecrated to some lovely nymph."