[Book Review] Turning Homeward: Restoring Hope and Nature in the Urban Wild by Adrienne Ross Scanlan

By Adrienne Ross Scanlan

Tikkum Olam is a Hebrew phrase translated to ‘repair of the world’. Adrienne Ross Scanlan embodies this Jewish call to action when she moved across the country and immerses herself in repairing spawning habitat for salmon. In Turning Homeward, Ross weaves memoir with a discussion of environmental issues and Jewish thought in beautiful prose.

Ross’s writing is engrossing from beginning to end. Her insights into the issue of restoring urban habitat for salmon are informative and inspiring. She does an incredible job of balancing her personal experience with factual information about her work in environmental restoration. I also found this book motivational, a call to consider where the reader can make an impact in the world.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

More About This Author

Adrienne Ross Scanlan is the author of Turning Homeward – Restoring Hope and Nature in the Urban Wild (Washington State Book Award Finalist 2017, Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award 2016 Notable Book, and Nautilus Book Award Silver Medal 2016-2017). Her nature writing and other creative nonfiction has appeared in City Creatures, LabLit: The Culture of Science in Fiction & Fact, the For Love of Orcas anthology, and many other publications. She received an Artist Trust Literature Fellowship, was the nonfiction editor for the Blue Lyra Review, and is a reviewer for the New York Journal of Books. Adrienne has a Certificate in Editing from the University of Washington and is a freelance developmental editor. Her second book (in progress) is about a small personal project – planting one thousand trees in western Washington. You can reach her at adrienne@adrienne-ross-scanlan.com.

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