Small Misty Mountain: The Awanadjo Almanack

Winner of the Pushcart 20th Editors' Book Award, McCall's botanical, zoological, spiritual and neighborhood almanac grew out of his longtime community radio show in coastal Maine. The mountain he refers to is Blue Hill Mountain ("Awanadjo" in Algonkian) near Blue Hill, Maine, where McCall serves as a Congregational minister. Careening from the mystical to the practical, cranky to idealistic, the book offers a year's worth of entries for each phase of each moon, accompanied by charming woodblock illustrations by Jonathan Fisher (first minister of McCall's church). McCall reports, philosophizes and preaches on natural events (e.g., cedar waxwings in the orchard; immigration), "un-natural events" (laws against immigration; machine-made Halloween decorations), as well as singling out "critters of the week" and other things he finds in the fields, forests, mountains and saltwater areas around him. He provides quotations from Walt Whitman, Annie Dillard and others, along with "rank opinions" of his own (e.g., "Many people have survived and flourished for millennia without computers, insurance, automobiles, skyscrapers, credit cards, and televisions, but none could survive long without food and care for children"). By turns inspiring and infuriating, McCall has something for everyone, but as he says at the end of each moon, "Don't take it from me. Go out and see for yourself." (Oct.)