Saturday, January 06, 2007
Book Review - There's A Hair In My Dirt! A Worm Story
Who else is there better equipped to give insight into the so-called “beauty of nature” than Gary Larson. There’s a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm’s Story opens the eyes of the bleeding heart liberal tree hugger to the other side of the beauty they witness.
The far side type story opens with a family of three worms sitting down to their evening meal. Little worm has found a hair in his dirt. Apparently this discovery is the final straw to frustrations he’s accumulated. He voices his anger with being fish bait, robin food, and being at the bottom of the food chain. In an attempt to rebuild his son’s confidence in his place in the chain, father worm relates the sidesplitting story of Harriet, a young maiden who is in love with the mysteries of Nature.
The reader learns a barrage of lessons. The initial eye-opener is gray squirrels are aggressive and take over the domains of the red, timid squirrels. When Harriet is overcome by the radiance of a field of flowers father worm explains it is a battlefield where the floral are competing for pollination from prime insects in order to reproduce. The ants Harriet sees hauling eggs are praised by the nature buff, but in fact are Amazon ants who steal the eggs of other ants and once hatched make them slaves to their colonies. (Does this sound familiar?)
Eventually the reader is introduced to Bob the lumberjack. Bob has one direction. He cuts trees, but because he lives among the forest creatures, Harriet accepts him.
Larson's daddy worm enlightens readers with the truth about "the symphony of birds" that is in truth “an array of insults and warnings, and come-ons to members of their own species. (welcome to the hood!) Dragonflies are assassins and not “winged ballerinas, for "their magical flight" is the destruction of insects by the thousands in an afternoon. At the close the reader is conscious of the difference between tortoises and turtles, a slug and a worm, why not to kiss that frog, and why people should not try to help as much as they do. We even learn how severe sibling rivalry can be in the world of the Golden Eagle.
As each page brings a clearer perspective to beauty/disaster Harriet rescues a mouse from the coils of a snake. But the mouse is not merely a mouse and the snake is not poisonous but a rodent-eating snake.
I won’t give away the conclusion. I will only say it is in the traditional Larson style. There’s a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm’s Story adds food and vocabulary for thought to hearts that wrench with what they see and neglect to give pause and reflection to the whys and the wherefores of what the eye beholds. The finest creators of beauty that we humans glorify in museums, periodicals, art galleries, etc. have the ugly side to them as well. I am not certain what social justice is but I do know there is justice in this world if we see all aspects of a situation, without restricting our circle of sight. It’s all in the connection!
The far side type story opens with a family of three worms sitting down to their evening meal. Little worm has found a hair in his dirt. Apparently this discovery is the final straw to frustrations he’s accumulated. He voices his anger with being fish bait, robin food, and being at the bottom of the food chain. In an attempt to rebuild his son’s confidence in his place in the chain, father worm relates the sidesplitting story of Harriet, a young maiden who is in love with the mysteries of Nature.
The reader learns a barrage of lessons. The initial eye-opener is gray squirrels are aggressive and take over the domains of the red, timid squirrels. When Harriet is overcome by the radiance of a field of flowers father worm explains it is a battlefield where the floral are competing for pollination from prime insects in order to reproduce. The ants Harriet sees hauling eggs are praised by the nature buff, but in fact are Amazon ants who steal the eggs of other ants and once hatched make them slaves to their colonies. (Does this sound familiar?)
Eventually the reader is introduced to Bob the lumberjack. Bob has one direction. He cuts trees, but because he lives among the forest creatures, Harriet accepts him.
Larson's daddy worm enlightens readers with the truth about "the symphony of birds" that is in truth “an array of insults and warnings, and come-ons to members of their own species. (welcome to the hood!) Dragonflies are assassins and not “winged ballerinas, for "their magical flight" is the destruction of insects by the thousands in an afternoon. At the close the reader is conscious of the difference between tortoises and turtles, a slug and a worm, why not to kiss that frog, and why people should not try to help as much as they do. We even learn how severe sibling rivalry can be in the world of the Golden Eagle.
As each page brings a clearer perspective to beauty/disaster Harriet rescues a mouse from the coils of a snake. But the mouse is not merely a mouse and the snake is not poisonous but a rodent-eating snake.
I won’t give away the conclusion. I will only say it is in the traditional Larson style. There’s a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm’s Story adds food and vocabulary for thought to hearts that wrench with what they see and neglect to give pause and reflection to the whys and the wherefores of what the eye beholds. The finest creators of beauty that we humans glorify in museums, periodicals, art galleries, etc. have the ugly side to them as well. I am not certain what social justice is but I do know there is justice in this world if we see all aspects of a situation, without restricting our circle of sight. It’s all in the connection!
# posted by Bite Me Kissimmee @ 1:36 PM 
