Home School Book Review on Hiking the Grand Mesa

Torke, Kyle.  Hiking the Grand Mesa: A Clementine the Rescue Dog Story (Published in 2020  by Loving Healing Press, 5145  Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, MI  48205).   Two young boys, Coover and Conrad, go with their Grandma and their mighty rescue dog, Clementine, on a desert adventure.  They hike through the southern Colorado Dobies, a series of steep hills made from adobe clay that formed as the nearby volcanoes, now extinct, eroded.  Their goal is to explore one of the most unique landscapes in Colorado–the Grand Mesa. At first, Coover seems a little sad and lonely at the apparently barren and solitary landscape, but Grandma introduces him to the rich wildlife, both plant and animal, around them, and both boys go tramping through an imaginative journey.  What will they see?  Where will they go?  And what will they do?

Hiking the Grand Mesa is a nature lover’s dream.  Beginning readers will be fascinated by the vivid history of the area as described in author Kyle Torke’s clear, detailed text, and by the beautiful scenery depicted in illustrator Barbara Torke’s gorgeous watercolor paintings.

This fun and insightful story is a wonderful, challenging reading experience with vocabulary development, contextual learning, and the encouragement of imagination.  From woodpeckers and toads, to cattails and sunflowers, youngsters will be awakened to a whole new world.  The first book in the series is Ice Breaking: The Adventures of Clementine the Rescue Dog.

Honor the Earth

978-1-61599625-4
$24.95
Indigenous Response to Environmental Degradation in the Great Lakes, 2nd Ed.
In stock
1
Product Details
UPC: 978-1-61599625-4
Brand: Modern History Press
Binding: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Author: Phil Bellfy (Ed.)
Pages: 302
Publication Date: 01/01/2022

The Great Lakes Basin is under severe ecological threat from fracking, bursting pipelines, sulfide mining, abandonment of government environmental regulation, invasive species, warming and lowering of the lakes, etc. This book presents essays on Traditional Knowledge, Indigenous Responsibility, and how Indigenous people, governments, and NGOs are responding to the environmental degradation which threatens the Great Lakes. This volume grew out of a conference that was held on the campus of Michigan State University on Earth Day, 2007.

All of the essays have been updated and revised for this book. Among the presenters were Ward Churchill (author and activist), Joyce Tekahnawiiaks King (Director, Akwesasne Justice Department), Frank Ettawageshik, (Executive Director of the United Tribes of Michigan), Aaron Payment (Chair of the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians), and Dean Sayers (Chief of the Batchewana First Nation). Winona LaDuke (author, activist, twice Green Party VP candidate) also contributed to this volume.

Adapted from the Introduction by Dr. Phil Bellfy:

"The elements of the relationship that the Great Lakes' ancient peoples had with their environment, developed over the millennia, was based on respect for the natural landscape, pure and simple. The "original people" of this area not only maintained their lives, they thrived within the natural boundaries established by their relationship with the natural world. In today's vocabulary, it may be something as simple as an understanding that if human beings take care of the environment, the environment will take care of them. The entire relationship can be summarized as "harmony and balance, based on respect."
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  1. Pingback: Home School Book Review on Hiking the Grand Mesa – Loving Healing Press | Campbells World

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