Small Wonder – Barbara Kingsolver

Essays that Gives you a Heads up of What’s up in the World

Feb 16, 2009

From essays that delve into the deeply personal to stories that are richly ingrained with life, Kingsolver is not shy when it comes to stating her opinions.

Small Wonder, a wonderful book of essays, by Barbara Kingsolver, opens up with a mind-blowing account about a missing child in Iran. With not a single clue as to the whereabouts of this sixteen month old child, the Lori villagers begin their search in the “oak-forested hills” of the Lorestan Province.

After days of searching and with no signs of the missing child, the parents were in a frenzy state to find their sixteen-month old. To the relief of the villagers, a sudden cry was detected inside the womb of a cave. Moving deeper within that abyssal darkness, they found the child nestled beside a bear. The bear was nursing the lost child; its cubs perhaps dead, the mother bear had brought the child back to her den to continue nursing.

Kingsolver compares the state of our world to the bear. Our number one enemy is possibly our consumer appetites, and like the bear it could either eat us up or save us. Our nation has not possibly seen a greater enemy.

A Vivacious Writer Gives Reader a Lasting Impression

Kingsolver’s memorable voice is empowering throughout her narratives. Like the anecdote above, each essay is jam-packed with sayings, quotes, and a close and insightful look at today’s societal and environmental issues.

With boundless energy and enthusiasm, Kingsolver walks us through her vegetable garden and from there take us on a journey through the Grand Canyon up the plains of Africa and through the exotics forests of the Amazon. We never forget at any moment what a grounded women she is. Her travels around the world and her tales that just need to be told are things that can happen in the remotest parts of the world and they are things that are just up your alley.

A Sense of Story

Reading her book of essays is like opening up Pandora’s box of infinite secrets: from the deeply intimate to the relatively simplistic solutions that Kingsolver brings up, we cannot forget that story is, at the heart of things, where place is. Without a sense of place, a deeply enriching element of the narrative would be missing.

“Whether we understand where we are or don’t, that is story: to be here or not to be. Storytelling is as old as our need to remember where the water is, where the best food grows, where we find our courage for the hunt. [And] it’s as persistent as our desire to teach our children how to live in this place that we have know longer than they have,” writes Barbara Kingsolver.

The copyright of the article Small Wonder – Barbara Kingsolver in Social Science Books is owned by My Nguyen. Permission to republish Small Wonder – Barbara Kingsolver in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.