Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps by Ted Kooser is the “One Book, One Nebraska” selection for 2011.Ted Kooser, a very distinguished Nebraska author, was the US Poet Laureate in 2004-2006 and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005.
I picked this book up several times in the past, but it never quite held my interest until several people told me how much they enjoyed the book. So, I gave it another try, and I’m glad I did.
Although Kooser is known for his poetry, this is not a poetry book. The book is divided into four chapters: spring, summer, fall and winter in which the author shares a lifetime of observations about the land, home, people and family, describing in detail and humor the place he calls home in the rolling hills of southeast Nebraska known as the Bohemian Alps.
As he takes walks with his dog, he observes and reflects on the landscape, his neighbors and just the everyday life in the area where he lives. In the book we learn that Ted Kooser grew up in Iowa and came to the place he lives now in the country side of Garland, Nebraska in the 1980’s.
The author pays tribute to his father and his mother on several occasions, and he talks about all the ordinary treasures found in one’s own backyard. His mother was a very thrifty woman, and he learned from her not to throw anything away. “There might come a time when you are able to use it”, she’d say. Kooser actually still wears the shirt his mother made for him many years ago, and a crocheted cap his father made some thirty years ago when his father had retired and needed something to keep him busy.
In a unique way the author describes the little simple things, and weaves a story around them, which really draws the reader in. Such as the old cookie tins and even older cans of spices he salvaged when they cleaned out his mother’s house in Iowa. The cookie tins Ted now utilizes for nails and miscellaneous items in his garage, and his wife was actually able to make use of the spices one day when she was making pumpkin pie. He recalls with humor how he and his son moved an outside toilet to a different location, and how he keeps a ‘Library’ of books in a shed down by the pond. He reveals his love of painting landscapes from his old pickup, along frequenting garage sales and talks about the thrift store run by the Mennonite women that he often stops at.
Ted Kooser has a flair for recalling memories and creating stories in everything he observes, and something always reminds him of events in his past. It is through his eyes and words that the readers can learn to appreciate the world around them and enjoy and admire their own local wonders.
To quote the author:” If you can awaken inside the familiar and discover it new, you need never leave home”
You can find Local Wonders: Season in the Bohemian Alps in the Nebraska section of the library.
** Note: This book was written into a musical play and performed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.