Animal, Vegetable, Miracle-A year of food life

By- Barbara Kingsolver

I have been a big fan of Barbara Kingsolver for some time. I've love many of her works of fiction, "The Poisonwood Bible", "Animal Dreams" and "The Bean Trees" to name a few. When I saw this new book I was excited because she's such a good writer and because I'm becoming increasingly interested in food choice, and yet not excited, because I sometimes struggle to read nonfiction. It just doesn't suck me the same way as a good novel. In the end I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and learned a lot in the process. "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is an account of the author and her family's quest to eat organic and local food for one year, growing and raising much of what they eat. It got me really excited about gardening,and wishing I had room for some chickens. She makes some interesting points about the benefits of eating local seasonal food, namely better flavor and also saving natural resources by not relying on food being shipped in from around the world. It was an interesting experience to follow her and her family on, but I'll admit it did take me longer to read than most books. I'd give this book a G rating (with the exception of the chapter where they were trying to teach their turkeys to mate), and 4 stars.