Description: The special mystery and beauty of the sea is the setting for Rachel Carson's memorable portrait of the sea birds and sea creatures that inhabit the eastern coasts of North America. In a sequence of riveting adventures along the shore, within the open sea, and down in the twilight depths, Rachel Carson introduces us to the winds and currents of the ocean as revealed in the lives of Scomber the mackerel and Anguilla the eel. Life for them is a continuous miracle, a series of life-and-death victories played out among strange and often terrifying life forms far below the surface of the sea.
Brief description:
Rachel L. Carson (1907-1964) earned a graduate degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins in 1932, in an era when few women went to college. She was the first woman to pass the civil service exam and went on to work with the Fish and Wildlife Service, where she became chief editor of publications. Her gift for writing about technical science in clear, poetic prose eventually led to a full time writing career, culminating with her controversial Silent Spring, one of the most influential books of the century. She is often called the mother of the modern environmental movement. Two years after Silent Spring was published she died of cancer, possibly due to the very pesticides she warned against in her book.
Review Quotes:
"Rachel Carson was one of the reasons why I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues....Her picture hangs on my office wall among those of political leaders, presidents, and prime ministers. It has been there for years--and it belongs there. Carson has had as much or more an effect on me than any of them and perhaps all of them together."
-- "Al Gore, praise for the author"