Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Eating Locally is Barbara Kingsolver's first non-fiction publication. It tells the story of her family's adjustment to eating locally for one full calendar year.

Fast Facts

1. Author: Barbara Kingsolver, Steven Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver
2. Genre: Non-Fiction
3. Publication Date: May 1, 2007
4. Publisher: HarperCollins
5. Pages: 384
6. ISBN: ISBN 978-0060852559
7. Awards: Time Magazine's number 7 Nonfiction Book of the Year
8. Discusses the premise of Slow Food International

Plot Synopsis

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Eating Locally chronicled Barbara Kingsolver's family's experiment of only eating what they could make or grow for one year. This included not only just vegetables they grew in their garden, but chickens that they raised from birth, and cheese they made from their milk from their own owns. Additionally, the family did not use any man-made techniques (ie canning) to keep the food from spoiling. Everything that was consumed was kept fresh without chemicals. While most of the book chronicles the family's diet, other chapters contrast what the now "traditional" methods of growing, packaging, preserving, and shipping similar meals take in terms of money, man power, and the carbon foot print left behind.

Critical Reception

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle met with some of the highest praises of any previously published Barbara Kingsolver book. Time Magazine declared it one of the Top Ten Nonfiction Books of the Year.

Categories