Small Wonder - 14 Down, 38 to Go

A few lessons learned from Barbara Kingsolver's collection of sharp, often riveting essays:

1. Effective environmentalism involves co-existing with the land. Knee-jerk advocacy, admonishing us to keep our grubby paws off the rarest, most endangered terra firma, treats ecosystems like museum exhibits and adds distance between us and the land. In the village of Calakmal, homes are built into the forest. Far from encroaching or slashing and burning, villagers are fiercely protective of their backyard.

2. Darwinism can be distilled to four basic principles which any of us could observe unfolding if we look hard enough.

3. The Japanese language does not accommodate insults, only infinite degrees of apology.

4. The shadow of 9/11 has made the U.S., on balance a noble and accomplished nation, sink into a troubling morass of provincialism. History, she believes, will not look kindly on our government's actions in the first four years after the terror attacks.

5. Ms. Kingsolver makes prose writing look easy, but poetry intimidates her.