CULTURE | BOOKS
Whitworth Theatre presents
and
Based on the novel by
Jane Austen
Adapted by Jon Jory Directed by Brooke Kiener
March 7, 8, 14 & 15 at 7:30 p.m. March 9 at 2 p.m.
Sense of Place
Cowles Auditorium, Whitworth University Info: 509.777.3707 Tickets: $8; $6 students/seniors (ages 62-plus) at www.whitworth.edu/theatretickets
KPBX_031314_4S_KE.pdf
A Spokane native, this writer and early childhood educator examines how relationships with nature begin in infancy BY CHEY SCOTT
D Northwest’s Bulk Seed
All The Best Varieties For The Spokane Area More Seeds Per Packet For Less Than The National Brands
Red, White, & Yellow
Spokane’s Local Garden Store Supplying Spokane Gardeners With Quality Products Since 1944 2422 E. Sprague Ave. 534-0694
7302 N. Division St. 484-7387
Online at nwseed.com
NWSeedPet_030614_6H_BD.pdf
38 INLANDER MARCH 13, 2014
ylan was Ann Pelo’s primary companion that year. Days were spent splashing in rain puddles, picking blackberries along the shore of Lake Washington and watching ants crawl in and out of cracks on the sidewalk in a North Seattle neighborhood. Dylan was just a baby, less than a year old. But that year the 49-year-old author and educator spent as the infant girl’s companion and caretaker — Pelo refers to it now as “the year with Dylan” — became the basis for her latest book, The Goodness of Rain: Developing an Ecological Identity in Young Children. Several days before the Spokane native ventures across the Cascades to discuss the book at Auntie’s Bookstore, Pelo explains what led to her to devote a year spending each day, rain or shine, exploring nature with Dylan. Dylan isn’t Pelo’s daughter (the author is unmarried and doesn’t have children), but the child of Pelo’s close friend. Coinciding with the time of Dylan’s birth, Pelo had made the choice to leave her job at Seattle’s Hilltop Children’s Center, where she’d worked for 16 years as a teacher and teacher mentor. “I felt this increasingly strong pull to live more intimately with the Earth; to be in a more unbuffered relationship than working in Seattle and living on Capitol Hill,” she says of the decision. Pelo grew up in Spokane, graduating from Gonzaga Prep, then attending Whitman College in Walla Walla, where she found her career calling in social justice and early childhood education. The Goodness of Rain is her fifth book, written largely for an audience of fellow educators. Some of Pelo’s first books on alternative early childhood education practices have incited critique, especially from those on the political right. She’s named in Fox News pundit Bernard Goldberg’s 2005 book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, landing the No. 51 spot on the anti-leftist list,