Jill Fales

Observations from Planet Earth by Skie Bender is set in a town by the ocean, where the natural world and the world impacted by humans intersect. Bender details her observations and experiences, most often with faithful dog Joey close by. Bender's writing style is vibrant, and at the same, time subtle. She weaves colors, moods, tones, and science into vignettes, lyrics, poems, and prose in which one can barely decipher where the pencil ends and the paintbrush begins. Words are a raw medium that Bender uses as an art form to craft images, evoke emotions, stimulate the senses, and create space to ponder both minute and worldly concepts. What is ugly becomes beautiful, what is painful becomes natural, and what is obvious becomes paradoxical. This book is for all people, but above all, those who love nature, dogs, poetry, quiet moments of observation, music, and art. It is for curious minds who understand that the most seemingly simple building blocks of the universe, and indeed our backyards, explode with natural gifts of complexity, majesty, mystery, pain, and abundance. Skie Bender shares her world and at the same time, constructs for her readers, a proverbial magnifying glass with which they can begin to more closely examine and value the beauty enveloping them. She also invites her readers to turn the looking glass around and magnify themselves, to discover what makes each of us a unique, fragile inhabitant of our ever-changing planet.