Emily Brisse

It's all there if we just slow down enough to look. 

I could say I had a hard time selecting my final Thirty Before Thirty "set in Minnesota" book. I could talk about John Hassler or Patricia Hampl or Carol Bly. I could write a very cerebral review, I suppose--you know, go out with some literary chops. But I'm a sucker for kids books. Minnesota's Hidden Alphabet  came out in late 2010 to much fanfare, and it's been reviewed in multiple places , so the only thing I can really add to this conversation is another dose of love. Photographer Joe Rossi traveled the wild corners of the state in search of letters etched in the landscape, in the bodies of trout lilies, in the ears of cottontail rabbits. David LaRochelle's text matches up with the photos in clever ways ("Overhead or on the ground, Peeking, sneaking all around, Quietly these letters lie, Ready for your roving eye.") and adds in fun facts (There's a wildflower called butter-and-eggs . Who knew?). It's a book you could read in three mi...

ablaze, afire, ardent, bake,   bask,   blaze , blood-hot,  boil,   broil,  calefaction,  calidity , canicular,  calorify,   chafe ,  char, close,  combustible, desire, diaphoretic,  dog  days, ebullient,  enflame,  enkindle, estiferous, excitement, ferocity, fervor,   fever,   fieriness, fire,  flame ,  flush ,  frizzle,   fry, fury, glow,  grill, grow hot,  heatwave,   HOT ,  hot  spell ,  hot  weather,   hot as pepper,  ignite,  incalescence,  incandescence, incinerate, inflame,  intensity, kindle, melt, molten, on fire, oppressive, oxidate,  passion, perspire, piping hot, plutonic, rage, roast,  scald, scorch, scumfished,  sear, seethe, set on fire, singe, smoking, smoldering,  sodden, steam, stifling, stuffy, suffocating,  sultriness, sun,  swelter, tepefy, toast,  torrid,  torrid...

The Big Woods. In the early 1800s, pre-settlement, huge stretches of Minnesota were covered in dense elm, basswood, sugar maple, and oak stands. When the French explorers came here, they noticed that these trees were taller and larger than those in many of the other forests they'd traveled through, so bois grand , they said. Big woods. Big, beautiful woods, I said, as I walked along the extensive trails at Lake Rebecca Park Reserve , just outside of Delano. My mother and I had met there for a picnic: chicken salad and crackers, a green apple, fresh-picked strawberries, and cold water. As we explored the quiet beach, the busy playground, and the shady walkways, I thought about those early-1800s years and how Minnesota looked then. One of my childhood dreams was to be an explorer, to walk over land few had seen. Although the many acres that make up Lake Rebecca Park were discovered long ago, ambling through it gave me a bit of that experience, because--what is  up ahead of that be...

What do you say to an island?  Hello. Hello, there.   I came to say... Yes? Just hello, I guess. Hello. And what is it like and how does it feel and what are the sounds and smells and tastes of being here so always, so all-year-everyday, so long? It is like... Yes? This. When I canoe across the wide water, when I slide into the bay, along its shore, I pay attention. I notice muskrats and blackbirds, fish flopping, and wind. I think about its name-- Loon --and its location-- south --and I wonder at the way it was when those northern birds were here enough to leave their name. How much changes on an island like this? No houses, no campers, no impervious surfaces. Just green and brown and blue and green and green and green and green. What is it like to be so set apart? To have children watch you every summer of their lives, curious and wise? And then for them to go away, sometimes for long stretches of time, only to come back older and quieter and less brave? Does the isla...

And yes, they taste as good as they look. Yaaaow!