Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard has been selected for the next One Book, One Community program, which is returning to the Thompson-Nicola Regional Library (TNRL) and will be touring around several of the area’s libraries, including Ashcroft.
The initiative selects one book for community members throughout the region to read and discuss each year. The first book selected for the program, in 2021/22, was Five Little Indians by Michelle Good, who wrote the book while she was a resident of Savona.
Five Little Indians explored the themes of residential schools, inter-generational trauma, poverty, addiction, suicide, racism, and resiliency.
Finding the Mother Tree is a scientific memoir that explores the many mysteries of the forest, and of life. Through decades of research as an ecologist, Simard has discovered that trees do not compete for resources, as conventional wisdom suggests, but instead communicate with each other through fungal networks, sharing nutrients and information. At the centre of the forest is the “mother tree”: the oldest one that nurtures the rest.
Simard is a Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia. She grew up in a logging family in British Columbia, which led her to a career in ecology. She has lived throughout the province, including in Kamloops, but her reach has been global: her 2016 talk at the TEDSummit has been viewed by more than 5.4 million people.
One Book, One Community is an online book club experience that was conceived of by the TNRL in partnership with Thompson Rivers University. The program supports reading, celebrates books and writing, promotes Canadian writers, and builds a sense of community through the shared experience of reading. It also encourages everyone to read the same book and discuss it with others — the TNRL has book club kits available for anyone who would like to start their own club — and provides opportunities for readers to meet the author and explore the book in even more depth.
As part of this year’s program, Simard will present talks in Kamloops and other communities throughout the region in April. On April 26 she will be at the Paramount Theatre in Kamloops starting at 6:30 p.m., and on April 27 she will be at the Ashcroft and Logan Lake libraries (at 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. respectively).
Simard will be at the Merritt Library on April 28 at 6 p.m., and at the Barriere and Clearwater libraries on April 29.
For further event details, go online to www.tnrl.ca/oboc.
editorial@accjournal.ca
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