UM-Deaborn's 2025-2026 Community Read book is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Braiding Sweetgrass celebrates the more-than-human communities of care of which we are all part. Kimmerer, a botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, explores how Indigenous ways of knowing can transform our relationships to the land, from gardening to parenting or scientific practice.
This reading aligns with several new initiatives from the Office of Holistic Excellence (OHE), projects based on Native ways of knowing and storytelling and a new campus Native Land Acknowledgement plaque. The book also aligns with an Inclusive History Project, planting Native plants and gardens at the Environmental Interpretive Center.
Complimentary copies of Braiding Sweetgrass are available to faculty, staff and students through the Mardigian Library, via the link below. It is also available as an unlimited-access ebook and on Libby.
Request Your Copy of Braiding Sweetgrass
For additional information or questions, please contact UMDearbornCommunityRead@umich.edu
