I simply can’t decide what this book, The Taste of Many Mountains by Bruce Wydick, about poverty and globalization, wants to be:
- A fiction story - like
when it tells about the young woman in 1980’s Guatemala; OR
- A “semi-fiction” work – when it focuses on 4 grad students
in 2007; OR
- A non-fiction text when it educates about randomized sampling,
the varieties of coffee and fair trade statistics.
I do think this was an admirable attempt to focus attention
on an important and complex problem, but, sadly, I kept getting pulled out of
the story every time the author switched focus. Most annoying were the four
graduate students who, frankly, seemed clueless at times. How could they be so concerned about
exploitation and then (blissfully ignorant?) simply sit down to eat a poor
family’s lunch?
Here is my suggestion:
publish a companion piece which visually tells the story of the coffee
growers and makes readers truly care about them and their situation. Some great role models for this would be Material
World by Peter Menzel; possibly What Matters by David
Elliot Cohen or even the format used in the newer Chuck Close: FaceBook.
Consider contrasting the living
situation in Guatemala with that of coffee drinkers in Seattle and elsewhere ...
Inviting students around the country to send photos and stories ... Be creative
and encourage participation.
Also, to be more effective and to raise discussion, keep
this as a work of non-fiction or as a type of memoir. See, for example, titles like Kids of
Kabul by Ellis (which my students love); or I am Malala
by Malala Yousafzai or Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
(also used in our curriculum) or possibly Little Princes by Conor
Grennan. Somewhat text heavy, Travels
of a T-shirt in the Global Economy by Rivoli is another example of
tackling these trade issues for a wider audience. [image source]
If it is not possible to re-shape the story, then please add
more extensive and accessible footnotes like Rivoli did. Here, in Taste
of Many Mountains, the author lists references by chapter, but it would
have been helpful to have an bibliography (annotated, if possible) for future
student work. For example, Wydick refers
to Black Gold by Antony Wild, but I do not think he mentions the
DVD by the same name; he includes Uncommon Grounds by Pendergast,
but does not seem to include the more recent Coffee: a Comprehensive
Guide edited by Thurston and others. And where are the website links? I saw a very few, but several more about fair
trade (even World Bank, IMF? WTO?) and sustainability/biodiversity (Rainforest
Alliance?) could certainly have been included. There are literally millions of
websites which discuss fair trade and coffee. Overall, this is a book with
potential that is based on an amazing amount of work and I hope that the author
and his team continue to produce material which will help us all learn more.
