Books like Teaming with Nutrients — picked by fans

It started when my friend gave me several pumpkin seeds he acquired from a giant pumpkin grower. He said it came from a large pumpkin, and growing one in my backyard would be fun. As a gardener, I thought this sounded entertaining. I planted the seeds in little pots and moved one of them to my garden during the spring. Soon, the plant began to grow astoundingly, taking over the entire garden area. Then, pumpkins started growing. I culled all but one pumpkin, and I witnessed a little pumpkin grow to 800 pounds in three months. I was amazed and astonished, and I was forever hooked on the sport of growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins.

It started when my friend gave me several pumpkin seeds he acquired from a giant pumpkin grower. He said it came from a large pumpkin, and growing one in my backyard would be fun. As a gardener, I thought this sounded entertaining. I planted the seeds in little pots and moved one of them to my garden during the spring. Soon, the plant began to grow astoundingly, taking over the entire garden area. Then, pumpkins started growing. I culled all but one pumpkin, and I witnessed a little pumpkin grow to 800 pounds in three months. I was amazed and astonished, and I was forever hooked on the sport of growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins.

It started when my friend gave me several pumpkin seeds he acquired from a giant pumpkin grower. He said it came from a large pumpkin, and growing one in my backyard would be fun. As a gardener, I thought this sounded entertaining. I planted the seeds in little pots and moved one of them to my garden during the spring. Soon, the plant began to grow astoundingly, taking over the entire garden area. Then, pumpkins started growing. I culled all but one pumpkin, and I witnessed a little pumpkin grow to 800 pounds in three months. I was amazed and astonished, and I was forever hooked on the sport of growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins.

It started when my friend gave me several pumpkin seeds he acquired from a giant pumpkin grower. He said it came from a large pumpkin, and growing one in my backyard would be fun. As a gardener, I thought this sounded entertaining. I planted the seeds in little pots and moved one of them to my garden during the spring. Soon, the plant began to grow astoundingly, taking over the entire garden area. Then, pumpkins started growing. I culled all but one pumpkin, and I witnessed a little pumpkin grow to 800 pounds in three months. I was amazed and astonished, and I was forever hooked on the sport of growing Atlantic Giant Pumpkins.

I’ve always been fascinated by nature, even from a young age. My parents would set up easels for my sister and me to paint outdoors, and I haven’t stopped drawing since. I tend to focus on flora and fauna, making illustrations with subdued colors and intricate details. I love to create illustrations for books, and occasionally, I’ll write them, too. Often reflective of history, mythology, and folklore, my work captures an old-world feeling and a love of nature. In my spare time, you can find me in my garden or out walking my dog, Molly.

I’ve always been fascinated by nature, even from a young age. My parents would set up easels for my sister and me to paint outdoors, and I haven’t stopped drawing since. I tend to focus on flora and fauna, making illustrations with subdued colors and intricate details. I love to create illustrations for books, and occasionally, I’ll write them, too. Often reflective of history, mythology, and folklore, my work captures an old-world feeling and a love of nature. In my spare time, you can find me in my garden or out walking my dog, Molly.

I used to love dystopian books, but recently, I’ve become increasingly interested in hopeful narratives. I’ve been a climate activist in a couple of movements, and I care deeply about the world, but with all the challenges and negativity we are facing, it’s easy to fall into despair. That’s why I think stories that show cooperation, community, respect for nature and each other, working for a better world, and making it happen are so important. We need those stories to get inspired to act instead of thinking that we’re all doomed anyway. They are also healing—a refuge for a tormented mind.

We are two college-level educators, one has had a long career, one a recent PhD. We share a commitment to lifelong learning, not just in the classroom but beyond. And we love learning from one another. We wrote The New College Classroom together during the pandemic, meeting over Zoom twice a week, discussing books by other educators, writing and revising and rewriting every word together, finding ways to think about improving our students’ lives for a better future even as the world seemed grim. The books we cherish share those values: hope, belief in the next generation, and a deep commitment to learning even in—especially in—the grimmest of times.

I have always tuned into the atmosphere of places. Sometimes this is a joy and sometimes it’s a very different experience, but either way, it’s a fundamental part of me. It spills over into my work, too, because each of the thirty-odd non-fiction books I’ve written has its own strong atmosphere. I was particularly aware of this while writing Red Sky at Night, as I wanted to evoke a sense of the past informing the present, whether that means planting a shrub to keep witches away from your front door or baking what I still think is one of the best fruit cakes ever.

I grew up in a coastal landscape and aspired from childhood to read my way through it by knowing its plants. I once watched a master carver at work on a totem pole at a living museum and could relate the wood curls falling from his adze to the giant cedars growing at the site. As a university student, I worked in a botanical show garden, learning so much about the provenance of plants and what they tell us about geography, history, and beauty. These experiences, in childhood and early adulthood, formed my lifelong interest in ethnobotany, nomenclature, and mythology, explored through the lens of creative work.