Michael Pollan has a great sense of humour and knows how to ponder a problem properly … from all sides. We mostly don’t stop and think about stuff to any depth or conclusion and I think we would be the better for it. Take this book whose subtitle is “a natural history of four meals”, Mr. Pollan looks at the food source of four meals. He’s like a dog with a very large bone … chews away at it until there isn’t anything left. Did I say he was funny? We do have a lot of choices about what we eat … hence the dilemma. Our home is ostensibly vegan, maybe even what I would call ‘cranky vegan’. In addition to no meat, poultry, fish, and dairy, there is no processed, sugar, added salt and rarely oils. So of course I wanted Mr. Pollan’s book to point in this direction. But of course he doesn’t, well, not really. He presents a load of information and leaves the decision making to the reader. Drats! Great read though.

Did you know I catalogue books? Here that means I have my hands on about 100 books a day, or at least most days. Because I catalogue for 28 schools, there are repeats and boring books, and there are a lot of books that are good, but not great. But there are some that strike me as totally outstanding. Zen shorts by Jon J. Muth is one such book. The abstract reads:

When Stillwater the bear moves into the neighborhood, the stories he tells to three siblings teach them to look at the world in new ways.

Not only are the stories within the story wonderful, the illustrations are lovely and evoke a sense of peacefulness that I don’t often see in books. So if you see this great book in the children’s literature area of your local bookstore, or even find it in your public library, stop and have a read, I’m quite sure you will agree the 10 minutes were well spent.