Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Drawing from her experiences as an Indigenous scientist, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer demonstrated how all living things—from strawberries and witch hazel to water lilies and lichen—provide us with gifts and lessons every day in her best-selling book Braiding Sweetgrass. Adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith, this new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us. With informative sidebars, reflection questions, and art from illustrator Nicole Neidhardt, Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults brings Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the lessons of plant life to a new generation.

Monique Gray Smith is an award-winning, best-selling author and professional consultant. She has written eight books including Speaking our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation, My Heart Fills with Happiness, You Hold Me Up, Lucy and Lola, Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience,and When We Are Kind. Monique''s most recent novel, Tilly and the Crazy Eights was long listed for Canada Reads 2021. Monique is Cree, Lakota, and Scottish. She lives in British Columbia, Canada with her teenage twins.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is an author, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her work includes Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, which was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. She lives in upstate New York.

Nicole Neidhardt is an artist and a Diné (Navajo) of Kiiyaa''áanii clan. She received her MFA from OCAD University in Toronto, ON and my Bachelor of Fine Arts and Business minor from the University of Victoria. She is the co-founder of the Innovative Young Indigenous Leaders Symposium, alongside Gina Mowatt, and the co-founder of Groundswell Climate Collective, a group that is fighting the climate crisis through resiliency and artwork. She is currently based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.