Editor's note: E. Philip Trapp, author and University of Arkansas professor emeritus of clinical psychology, has been profiled twice in this newspaper, in 2019 and in an April 2020 "Where Are They Now" article describing his second book publication in less than two years. As you will see, there was more to come.
"Grandfather's Legacy: His Personal Story of the Flowers" is Dr. Phil Trapp's third published book in just two years. The book is creatively unique while still maintaining Trapp's signature humor and writing style.
The book's premise is that, after the death of wise, witty Grandfather (first introduced in Trapp's "Did the Smarter Apes Stay in the Trees"), his grandson discovers a treasure trove of writings about flowers, stashed in a box in the attic. This eclectic collection of facts, fables and folklore about "earth stars" (Grandfather's name for flowers) included stories from mythology, poems celebrating flowers and trees over the millennia, and tales of the complex language of flowers seen in the Victorian Age. Grandson organized these writings loosely into "Grandfather's Legacy" to showcase Grandfather's belief that "Flora...[provide]...truly a culture-free language, understood by the young and old, the dull and the bright, the saint and the sinner, all over the known world."
Dr. David L. Williams, a noted psychologist in Northwest Arkansas, has reviewed the book and captures the spirit of the work in stating, "...[the book]... is at once a celebration of the beautiful influence of flowers on humankind, a tribute to the grandfatherly earth wisdom that shaped a grandson's life and a sweet plea for protecting our multi-flowered environment." The poetry and anecdotes about flora and fauna are complemented by what Williams describes as Trapp's "...imaginative devices such as discovery of Adam's diary evoking a belly-laughing alternate story of Creation confirming Adam as the first gardener and Eden the first garden....[The book] closes with the fable of Wilbur, the talking woodchuck, contemplating humankind's potential extinction via environmental suicide. There are many tongue-in-cheek side trips in between."
"Grandfather's Legacy" is entertaining, informative and humorous. It also contains what Williams calls a "...substantive and compelling environmental SOS" which manages to convey urgency but also hopefulness.
As Williams sums up, "'Grandfather's Legacy' offers readers a unique, delightful opportunity to live in the imaginative world, to smell the roses more fully and to hold sweet the environmental hope." The legacy is also Trapp's gift to us, his readers, who are lucky he is still guiding us as he nears the centennial mark of his life.
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“Grandfather’s Legacy: His Personal Story of the Flowers” by Phil Trapp is available wherever books are sold, including a Kindle edition on Amazon.