“Spell the Month in Books is a linkup hosted on Reviews From the Stacks on the first Saturday of each month. This month was easy because self-evidently May has only three letters — and the theme is Nature” which lends itself to quite a number of settings. So I tried going back through my blog to see how far back I had to go. I had to go back 2 years for the letter “Y.” Links are to my “reviews” on this site.

First up is A Midwife’s Tale:  The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 using Midwife as the M word. This is such an excellent book by the historian Laurel Thatcher Ulric. It won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1991 and totally deserved it. I chose to read it because it provides a lot of the historical background for The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhorn  It’s such an interesting and well-documented  narrative taken from the diary of a real midwife in 18th century, Maine so there really is quite a lot of natural surroundings.

The next letter is “A” as found in All That She Carried byTiya Miles, another non-fiction book which starts out as the story of three Black women who were mainly illiterate and mostly slaves. For the most part they lived in Charleston, South Carolina until they moved (or were moved) away. The eldest was Rose who gave her 9-year old daughter, Ashley, a plain sack when she was moved to another plantation. In the sack were a tattered dress, some pecans, a braid of hair and love. Ashley was Ruth’s grandmother and Ruth embroidered that history on the bag. This is women’s history, documented, and from the heart. Winner of  the National Book Award of 2022.  There is a lot of nature here with the journey Ashley took. 

And last comes the letter “Y”  for Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha which is loosely based on the story of  a the Rodney King beating and trial plus a controversial grocery store shooting in the same area and at the same time.  There isn’t much about “nature,” as such, in this book as it takes place mostly on the streets of LA.