Shake Them 'Simmons Down

This is a collection of essays by Janet Lembke. Lembke loves trees. So do I, so it was a good match here. The author lives in southeastern USA, and she writes about the trees that live near her, like the Catalpa, and persimmon (AKA 'simmon), and sassafras, and loblolly pine, and pawpaw. The pawpaw. These trees are the very same never forgotten trees my friends and I called "poopy trees" for the fruit of these trees smell like, well...a baby's dirty diaper. We had only encountered them once on a summer trip we took, but their smell left a lasting impression on us. In this book, Lembke says that there was a fancier's group for pawpaw trees and their smelly fruit! She said that people ate them! I called my mother to tell her about this and she told me that I too ate a relative of this fruit and loved it growing up.

This is a lovely book and the respect that the author feels for the trees around her shines through in her words.

posted by reader kay at 4:52 AM