Aliens in the Backyard: Plant and Animal Imports into America (Non Series) Paperback – August 15, 2010

I bought this because my husband is interested in invasive species and I thought he would like it. But when he glanced at the cover, he didn't seem interested. And no wonder. It looks like either a children's book or a self-published new age book. The "joke" of pretending that it's about space aliens, implied by the title, Aliens in the Backyard, is amplified by the cover art showing a woman seemingly running in fear and about to trip over an armadillo. The cover art makes the book look like a self-published work rather than an award-winning title from a university press.The subtitle, "Plant and Animal Imports into America," which tells you what the book is about, is fairly small, smaller than the author's name. I never heard of the author, so why magnify his name as if it were a selling point? He's not the same John Leland who is a New York Times journalist and the author of books on John Kerouac and other hip topics. This John Leland is a professor of English at Virginia Military Institute, and the book won a Popular Culture Book of the Year award, information that is in tiny letters and barely noticeable on the cover. The worst thing, for me, is that the type is tiny and the ink too light to contrast with the off-white recycled paper. I can barely make the text out. So as a physical object, the book is not great. However, I read some of the text, and it's pretty interesting. If I read it, it may take me a very long time to make it through, little by little. It's a shame that some ill-advised design and publicity decisions make this book less likely to reach its intended audience, including older people whose eyesight is not keen. Implicitly making fun of people who claim to see flying saucers or space aliens is gratuitous and inconsistent with the tone or wit of this book. I struggled with the desire to return the book because of the small type, but decided to keep it because the Amazon Marketplace seller, Mesilla Internet Warehouse, wrapped it well, showing great care, so I don't want to cancel their sale. I will try my best to read it because it does look worthwhile, judging by my sampling.

This is a great book for anyone who loves nature. It is an "easy" read, gives lots of information and can be read in "bits and pieces" at a time. When I read a page to my husband he said, "I've got to read that book! He (the author certainly has done alot of resarce."

John Leland (Professor of English at the Virginia Military Institute) does a great job of pointing out which plants and animals are, and which plants and animals are not, native to America. He writes well with style, grace and wit, and he gives a lot of interesting information about how various animals and plants came to be incorporated into the America landscape and enterprise.From apples to kudzu he details which aliens have been a boon and which have been a sorry bust. In the case of kudzu (Pueraria lobata, which I saw for the first time in a Louisiana swamp a week before hurricane Katrina hit), "It Seemed a Good Idea at the Time" (title of one of his chapters). That was before people realized that kudzu completely blankets "whatever it grows on in a smothering welter of leaves and vines" strangling trees and other vegetation to death. (p. 161)Also not a good idea was the introduction of carp into America's waters. Leland opines that "Most fishermen and environmentalist regard its widespread introduction...as a disaster...," although there are some, including the Carp Angler Group, who have a different opinion. Similarly, people differ about whether it was a good idea to bring the starling (one of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works) to America since it is now considered "a dirty, noisy, gregarious, and aggressive" bird that has displaced native species. Perhaps the worst of the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" species is the gypsy moth, brought to America as a possible silk worm. Leland goes into some detail about "well-intentioned dreamers of silken fortunes" in the chapter, "A Sow's Ear from a Silk Purse."But these deliberately introduced species are relatively benign in the public eye compared to those that have freeloaded their way into our land and have more or less taken over in ways that we cannot control. The German cockroach, the Norway or brown rat, and the tumbleweed (surprisingly not native to the land of the cowboy but from Russia (with love)--oh, you deluded Sons of the Pioneers!) are three that Leland zeroes in on. He also has a few words to say about the American cockroach (probably not American--also called the palmetto bug) and the Oriental cockroach. Here in southern California we have all three, the German, the American and the Oriental. The German is the ever so prolific one that lives indoors in apartment houses and restaurants the world over, while the larger American and Oriental tend to live outdoors. I sometimes find one of the latter in my house dried up and dead in a corner or in a drawer, having wandered in and found nothing to eat and no moisture.An introduced species that is perhaps an even bigger pest here in the southland is the Argentine ant, which Leland unaccountably does not mention. I recommend he take a study on it. There's enough material there to write a book and then some. Once the Argentine ant (small and black with only an occasional tiny bite) sets up shop inside the walls or under an establishment such as an apartment building or a college dormitory, it is there to stay.What Leland does so very well in this book, and what makes it superior to some other books I have read, is integrate the alien species into the historical and cultural experience of the American people. In his chapter, "Out of Africa," he details "How Slavery Transformed the American Landscape and Diet." I had to laugh when I read that watermelon is not native to America but comes from Africa, as do peanuts and Bermuda grass, sesame seed and of course the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) also known as the black-eyed pea. I had to laugh because I recalled Randy Newman's satirical song encouraging Africans to come to America in the early days of the republic for "the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake"!Naturally, it is not in any way surprising that many of our foods come from other lands since most of the world's cuisines have found a home in American. Rice is not native, although the so-called "wild rice" is. Wheat comes from the Middle East as most people know, while potatoes are native to the Andes in South American.In the chapter "Cowboys and Their Alien Habits" Leland recalls the familiar story of how the horse was once native to America but had gone extinct here before Columbian times, and then was accidentally reintroduced by the Spanish explorers after which it revolutionized the Plains Indians' way of life. (p. 92) Also alien are the cowboy's cattle, including the Texas longhorn; and if we go back far enough even the "Indians," the so-called native Americans are not native. Sad to say many of the true natives, like the giant sloth and the cave bear and the great mammoth went extinct coincidental with the arrival of the first humans from across the Bering Strait.The only problem I have with this book and others like it, is that there is never enough. The way plants and animals have moved around the world and the way they have changed the lives of people is a continual source of fascination. Leland's fine book adds to the reader's pleasure while not sating it.