Because I have ADHD and am determined to make sure that you can tell by looking at the sheer number of topics I attempt to cover on this website, I like to do an occasional book review to go along with all the hiking, backpacking, canoeing, camping, history, and national park write ups (along with other assorted nonsense) that I write about. Today’s book is William J. Lewis’s Preserving the Pines: New Jersey and the Origins of Environmentalism, which came out in late May 2025.
Preserving the Pines: New Jersey and the Origins of Environmentalism by William J. Lewis
The History Press – 2025
217 pages
Back in 2021, William Lewis came out with a book called New Jersey’s Lost Piney Culture that I, thanks to ADHD, did a book review for. That debut book about pineys working the cycle of seasons in the pine barrens was fascinating and horrifying (ugh, the Kallikak chapter…) and funny and full of love, and made me look at the pine barrens in a new way. I could not have enjoyed the book more. But to be completely honest, a part of me thought how could William Lewis possibly follow that book up?
If your answer was a charming book about a gnome named Piney Joe that takes kids on a tour of the pine barrens followed by a book called South Jersey Legends and Lore that was a foray into the more creative side of William Lewis’s writing talents (the Hessian Island chapter alone is more than worth the price of admission), then you are much better at predicting things than I am!
Now book #4 is out – Preserving the Pines: New Jersey and the Origins of Environmentalism.
Right off the bat, despite having a hiking page and being about to recite the seven principles of Leave No Trace by heart (thanks many years of teaching Cub Scouts!), I’m not really into learning about the environmental movement, at least not post-John-Muir-and-Teddy-Roosevelt-camping-under-sequoia-trees-and-trash-talking-each-others-birding-skills/shooting-things obsession. Sure, I own copies of Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold, but they’ve been sitting in the to-read pile for a decade now, gathering dust and helping to slowly undermine the floors of my house while I continually passed them over for books about shipwrecks or the pines or Negro League baseball or local towns or Appalachian Trail thru-hiking or…
Yet this one was not destined to sit in the to-read pile for long. Why?
William Lewis’s latest book looks at the environmental movement through the life of Dr. V.E. Vivian. Who on Earth is that? Well, he was a professor at Glassboro College (now Rowan University), who turned a love of plants at Scout camp into a life time of being a MIGHTY OAK, a scientist and educator who spread his deep love of nature and a knowledge of how to share it to educators from across New Jersey and, directly and indirectly, to thousands and thousands of students who took part in environmental education programs. His love shone out most brightly through the Conservation and Environmental Science Center he founded at the historic village of Whitesbog (birthplace of the cultivated blueberry). Here, Dr. Vivian and a cadre of disciples and colleagues helped educators developed a passion for nature, and learn how to share that passion with students. Those educators learned how to get their students to look deeply and purposefully at nature, to wonder about nature, and, ultimately, to care about nature.
Lewis traces Vivian’s fascinating life, career, and projects, then briefly follows just some of an explosion of “acorns” from Vivian the Oak, the people who worked with or under Dr. Vivian and accomplished a shocking amount in the areas of environmental education and environmental protection in South Jersey. Along the way, we get to also take a look at a forgotten period of Whitesbog history between Elizabeth White and the current iteration of the historic village, dip our toes for a moment into the reemergence of pineland folks music, and to think about a part of modern education that maybe isn’t as healthy as it should be. And all of this is used as a tool to help understand the environmental movement and where it succeeded in the State of New Jersey with the education of a myriad of minds, not with legislation appearing from thin air.
At it’s most basic, Lewis’s book worthily rescues from the dustbin of history the story of a great man and shares with us. At the next level, it’s not really about the one person at all, but about the stunning impact that one person can have have for good with small actions and great love, the way that the film It’s a Wonderful Life does, only with curriculum writing and toads and curly grass fern instead of an angel (second class) and flower petals and a savings and loan. But this book is even more than that.
Several paragraphs ago, I shared that this one was not destined to sit in the to-read pile for long. Why? Because William Lewis had me hooked on this book months and months before I ever read a word of it, when he shared about it with me for less than two minutes when I asked him what he was working on next even though, intellectually, it didn’t sound like my favorite subject. He was passionate about the project he was researching and learning about. He wants to share what he’s learned. He wants the reader to care about the subject like he does…. wait, this sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
At its core, that is what this book is – a positive and inspirational call to action to join Dr. Vivian and dozens of others in the book and the many others not in the book in helping folks to CARE about the pinelands, about nature, about the environment, and ultimately to help save a place that Dr. Vivian, the author, and so many of us love. No matter how small you start, GO FORTH and become a MIGHTY OAK! Maybe you’ll teach some Cub Scout about Leave No Trace. Maybe you’ll listen to a nine-year-old chatter away about the cool rock he dug up in his yard and try to help him figure out what it is (it’s somehow always quartz… they just adore quartz). Maybe you’ll start an environmental education program in the woods and write curriculum. Maybe you’ll dress up like a gnome and talk about the pinelands to kids.
Should you buy and read this book? Yes. Absolutely. Then, take some inspiration from Dr. Vivian’s story. Get someone or many someones to look deeply and purposefully at nature, to wonder about nature, and to ultimately care about nature and the pine barrens. Teacher says every time you do, a piney gnome gets its wings.
This book from Arcadia Publishing/The History Press is available to buy online or directly from the author (I always recommend making the extra effort when you can to get it directly from the author (he’ll sign it for you!) or to order it from your local bookshop!). Check out William Lewis’s Facebook group or find out how to get the book directly from the author at https://www.facebook.com/pineytribe/
