When science writer Hannah Holmes decided to spend a year studying the inhabitants of her 0.2-acre patch of ground in suburban Portland, Maine, she went about the task with an ecologist's enthusiasm and a scientist's compulsive eye for detail. The result is an entertaining and effortlessly compelling examination of nature's stubborn (and successful) struggle to exist in the face of daunting manmade challenges. Holmes's lawn, unfertilized and rarely mowed, turns out to be a surprisingly diverse ecosystem of bird, mammal, and insect life--a self-perpetuating, constantly evolving community of chipmunks, ladybugs, spiders, slugs, and crows. These creatures, and the complex relationships between them, are the raw material for Holmes's incisive reflections on natural history, urban ecology, and the ignominious story of the over-irrigated, pesticide-laced American lawn--rolling out, Holmes notes, at a rate of one million acres per year. What drives Holmes is not just concern for the natural environment but a ravenous curiosity about every aspect of the world around her, from the sex lives of dragonflies and squirrels, to the murderous tendencies of the English sparrows that have colonized her land, to the survival strategies of the mosquitoes, sow bugs, and slugs that inhabit her yard by the hundreds. Holmes is an environmentalist to the core, but she never sermonizes. With Suburban Safari, an intimate, wry, and often challenging look at a world most of us never bother to notice, she ably demonstrates humanity's responsibility to a natural world that exists all around us--even in our own backyards. --Erica C. Barnett


From Publishers Weekly
When science and travel writer Holmes (The Secret Life of Dust) turned her attention to her suburban backyard, she discovered a community of wildlife desperately trying to survive in a sprawling world of "Wal-Marts and White-Crowned Sparrow Estates." Holmes manages to find signs of hope and humor amid the spread of civilization, and she reports animal activities in her yard with the fervor of Wild Kingdom's Marlin Perkins and the laconic glee of Garrison Keillor. "I'm a bit embarrassed to report that Cheeky has become the sun around which my world revolves," she confesses about her resident chipmunk. That small mammal is just one of the many creatures to whom Holmes gives names and personalities, but she keeps her naturalist credibility intact by inviting scientists and other experts to join her in her lawn chair vigil. With their help, she includes plenty of facts about the habits of common crows, insects, squirrels and even trees. Science and humor serve as well-managed launching points for environmental lessons. By the end of her year, Holmes has gently taught us that the American lawn is a pesticide-laden patchwork that's increasing by a million acres every year, that heating a house can produce five tons of pollutants annually and that stewardship of our own backyards is our responsibility. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
For readers who believe lawns are simply something needing mowing, science writer Holmes has news for them. Spending a year in her yard in South Portland, Maine, "was to learn how to administer this patch of ground in the best interest of all its citizens." Depending on the season, her two-tenths-acre empire is home to birds that lived in the ornamental shrubs, an oak tree, two pines, a chokecherry tree, and some sumacs. She records her yard as home to ladybugs (as dexterous as cats), crickets (they rarely hop, but plod along like the rest of us), and ants (they stop and tap antennae with each other). There are squirrels (one mated with five females and dropped dead), chipmunks (one lived in Holmes' house, and the book is dedicated to him), mice, skunks, woodchucks, and raccoons. All these creatures are her family, she says, "and mine to take care of, to the best of my ability." REVWR
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"Suburban Safari proves once and for all that there is life in the suburbs and tthat it's worth thinking hard about how to handle it."


Book Description
Who knew that an investigation into that patch of grass in our backyards could be so fruitful-and so funny?

More than 550 square miles of new lawns unfold each year in the U.S. alone. Although new research shows that these lawns aren't nearly as "unnatural" as ecologists once thought, no one has offered an accessible exploration of this novel habitat. Until now...

Equipped with a lawn chair and her infectious curiosity, science writer Hannah Holmes spends a year on her lawn hoping to discover exactly what's going on out there. Under her examination, the lawn teems with life, populated by a bewilderment of birds, a mess of mammals, and a range of plants that record the history of this little piece of ground. As the seasons progress, she guides us through this bustling community, inviting over biologists, ecologists, botanists, entomologists, and energy experts to further unveil the complexities of life in the 'burbs. Through this investigation, we encounter life-and-death dramas and mysteries that would make a rainforest blush-everything from the behavior of suburban crows and raccoons, to the way plants wage war, to the puzzle of baby pigeons (where are they?).

Funny, smart, and refreshing, Suburban Safari introduces us to a world so extraordinary it's hard to believe it's been right in front of us all along.



About the Author
Hannah Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dust. Her science and travel writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. She lives in South Portland, Maine.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"The lush green lawn is a long-standing symbol of success in America, but for the past few decades it has also gotten a bad rap. Criticized by ecologists as "sterile" and "unnatural," this lovingly cultivated swath has been recast as a homeowner's guilty pleasure. Yet as science writer Hannah Holmes reveals in this investigation into that little patch of grass in our backyard, there's a whole circus of activity taking place right under our noses." "Equipped with just a notebook and her infectious curiosity, Holmes spent a year on her lawn to discover exactly what's going on. And what discoveries she made! Holmes describes a world teeming with charming and not so charming animals, from alarmist crows to cheeky chipmunks, graceful spiders to sinister earthworms. As she befriends some and runs from others - skunks, for example, prove to be the sort of neighbors best kept at arm's length - she also unearths fascinating and ferocious struggles in the plant world. While native and invasive species duke it out for dominance over this tiny piece of earth, they enact a chronicle of New World versus Old World, strikingly similar to the human history of America." As the seasons progress, Holmes calls in the experts, inviting over biologists, botanists, entomologists, ecologists, and energy specialists to guide us through this bustling community of plants and animals. With their help, and through Holmes's investigation, we are introduced to miniature life-and-death dramas and given the answers to remarkable mysteries - everything from the eastward expansion of fearless cougars, to the sneaky way plants wage chemical warfare, to the secret hibernation of hummingbirds.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

When science and travel writer Holmes (The Secret Life of Dust) turned her attention to her suburban backyard, she discovered a community of wildlife desperately trying to survive in a sprawling world of "Wal-Marts and White-Crowned Sparrow Estates." Holmes manages to find signs of hope and humor amid the spread of civilization, and she reports animal activities in her yard with the fervor of Wild Kingdom's Marlin Perkins and the laconic glee of Garrison Keillor. "I'm a bit embarrassed to report that Cheeky has become the sun around which my world revolves," she confesses about her resident chipmunk. That small mammal is just one of the many creatures to whom Holmes gives names and personalities, but she keeps her naturalist credibility intact by inviting scientists and other experts to join her in her lawn chair vigil. With their help, she includes plenty of facts about the habits of common crows, insects, squirrels and even trees. Science and humor serve as well-managed launching points for environmental lessons. By the end of her year, Holmes has gently taught us that the American lawn is a pesticide-laden patchwork that's increasing by a million acres every year, that heating a house can produce five tons of pollutants annually and that stewardship of our own backyards is our responsibility. Agent, Michelle Tessler. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews