To Speak for the Trees

Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a brilliant storyteller. She is also an accomplished scientist and a passionate lover of trees. This mix of scientist-storyteller makes autobiography the perfect medium for her voice and her message of encouraging a love of trees in all people. Beginning with her youth in Co. Cork, Ireland, she tells her story of being orphaned, of learning the Irish traditions through her land and family, of becoming a botanist and focussing her research on medicinal benefits of trees, and of her becoming first a respected academic and then a spokesperson for arboreal life in Canada. The lucidity of memory and the sharpness of humour throughout bring an easy joy while reading, and her optimism is contagious. Her passion and positivity is at times overwhelming, but never saccharine.

Following the adage of "never let the truth get in the way of a good story", the chapters are filled with anecdotes both witty and personal, but clearly containing some small fibs. As a practitioner of many of the customs described as "dead" in the book, I found some of the broader brushstrokes were presented a little too much for a Canadian/US audience. Similarly, the liberties taken with translations of Irish a little jarring at times. But her reasons for the liberties are clear: this is a story and she wants the more important message of how she fell in love with trees to take focus. It does, and overall the autobiography is a joy.

The final 100-odd pages are a documentation of the ancient Ogham alphabet, something of a footnote to the book (and if this alphabet is of interest I would recommend instead Niall Mac Coitir's exceptionally researched and equally mystical book on the same subject).