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2023-2024 Common Read - Braiding Sweetgrass: Collateral Damage

"Your strange hunger for ease should not mean a death sentence for the rest of Creation." p. 359

Spotted Salamander

National Parks Service

Labrador Pond

Image courtesy of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation

Eastern red spotted newt

Bruce Lucas, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Salamander Tunnel in Amherst, MA

Hitchcock Center 

Bull frog

Buchanan Bill, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Northern Leopard Frog

Ryan Hodnett, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

An adult spring peeper

USGS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Keywords

Absolution: the act of forgiving someone for having done something wrong or sinful (MW)

Altruism:  unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others  (MW)
Circuitous: having a circular or winding course  (MW)

Collateral: accompanying as secondary or subordinate  (MW)

Evanescence (Evanescent): tending to vanish like vapor  (MW)

Fecund: fruitful in offspring or vegetation  (MW)

Herpetologist (Herpetology):  a branch of zoology dealing with reptiles and amphibians  (MW)

Ineffable: incapable of being expressed in words  (MW)

Ordnance: military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment  (MW)

Prodigious: extraordinary in bulk, quantity, or degree   (MW)

Sinuous: of a serpentine or wavy form  (MW)

Skein: a flock of wildfowl (such as geese or ducks) in flight  (MW)

Sortie: one mission or attack by a single plane  (MW)

Tussock: a compact tuft especially of grass or sedge  (MW)

Vernal: of, relating to, or occurring in the spring  (MW)

Xenophobia: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign  (MW)

Additional Resources

Salamander Crossing

Contact

James A. Cannavino Library

3399 North Road
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
(845) 575-3106

In the Library