I grew up on a gravel road and, like Maureen McCue, spent much of my childhood as a “free-range kid.” Her “memoir, and a little bit travel log,” was informed by over 30 years of life encountered along her rural Iowa road, as well as what she encountered on roads all around the world as part of her global health initiative. Her descriptions of the beauty that can be found on those roads is counter-balanced by the undeniable signs that there is much work needed to protect our surroundings.
McCue makes the persuasive and poetic case that rural life might be one answer to the environmental ills brought by our consumptive, thoughtless and relentlessly destructive society. While Iowa is not known for its nature writing, McCue’s lovely book might change that!”—Carolyn Raffensperger, Executive Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network
“Birds in the Morning speaks to their experiences and the incredible connectivity they are finding throughout the world in their daily encounters with flying or climbing creatures, and experiences of nature, which provide them a deep taste for and appreciation of all life. I am grateful that Maureen McCue has shared this recipe with us.”—Bradley Randles MD MPH, Family Medicine and Global Health
“Experience the real beauty, rootedness, struggles, and tensions of that journey by visiting Maureen’s road, her garlic chives and raccoons, her headless chickens done in by various small mammals. Through this one road she magically shows us so many others, in Bangladesh, in Nicaragua, but yet always still in Iowa.”—Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D, President, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, author Ecology and Genetics
“By interweaving her children, neighbors, the road, along with the flora and fauna she tells a story that unfolds a thousand times all over the world and her dream for respect and care for Mother Earth.”
—Denise O’Brien, Organic Farmer, Politician, Leader Food Movement, Agriculture Adviser USDA
“To see so much in one place is both engaging and inspiring. Highly recommended if you care about our shared future.”—Paul Deaton, Blogger, writer, gardener, human
