and something unknown to them until the end of summer. Reading “Prodigal Summer,” you’ll learn a lot of plant and animal biology-and also a lot about people and their dreams and yearnings. The novel is told by three characters in alternating chapters: Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist whose chapters are all titled “Predators” Garnett Walker, an old native son who’s determined to revive the American chestnut tree (his chapters aptly titled “Old Chestnuts”) and Lusa Landowski Widener, an entomologist recently married into a large local family and soon left with keeping the family farm afloat, in “Moth Love” chapters. What Kingsolver does so well is create three characters who want something large and concrete that they can champion. Kingsolver, educated as an evolutionary biologist, is the rare writer who can mesh great characters and engaging plot with science and ecology. Tangled in lush growth, love and loss, creation and re-creation. There’s no better time to read Barbara Kingsolver’s “Prodigal Summer,” set in the Virginia mountains and teeming with insects and animals You’re thinking about the deep green of the mountains and the bird calls, and everything in thick bloom. It’s winter, and admit it: You’re yearning for the long days of summer.
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