Product Description

Rachel Carson combined her love of science and writing in her award-winning and controversial book Silent Spring. Revealing the dangers of pesticide use, it brought readers a new awareness of humankind’s contamination of the environment and ultimately led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #215571 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780142410462
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 6–9—Levine describes how Carson's childhood, strong relationship with a supportive mother, and lifelong love of nature influenced her decision to become a biologist and later made her an environmental pioneer. The author draws on numerous primary sources to document the scientist's life and provides considerable information about her education and early career as well as the work that made her famous. She details how Carson's determination helped her overcome many obstacles, including financial struggles, gender discrimination, and family crises, and describes her long and courageous battle with the cancer that ended her life. Levine also analyzes how the woman's work contributed to a greater public understanding of the dangers of pollutants and became the impetus for the environmental movement and related federal laws. Levine is admiring of her subject; she includes a quote comparing the impact of Carson's work with that of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, which President Lincoln credited with starting the Civil War. Average-quality black-and-white photos supplement the text and there are extensive notes and an annotated bibliography with a wide variety of sources. This book provides more detail about Carson's personal life than George Shea's Rachel Carson: Founder of the Environmental Movement (Gale, 2005), which is shorter and more focused on her career and impact on environmentalism. This is an excellent choice for those who want to learn more about the woman behind the legend.—Mary Mueller, Rolla Junior High School, MO
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Direct, eloquent, and precise, this biography in the Up Close series offers an intimate portrait of environmental pioneer Rachel Carson. In well-paced chapters filled with relevant quotes, Levine traces how Carson's passion for the science of living things, which began during her rural youth, developed into an astonishing career that helped make careful stewardship of Earth a national issue. Throughout, Levine emphasizes the prevailing attitudes toward women's roles and how Carson was able to overcome those limiting expectations to break ground and become such an effective voice for environmental concerns. A few of the scattered black-and-white photos and drawings show Carson in the field; source notes and a bibliography close. A balanced, thoroughly researched introduction to an original scientist whose work remains of urgent importance today. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
This is an excellent choice for those who want to learn more about the woman behind the legend. -- School Library Journal, starred review

Customer Reviews

Great Introduction to Rachel Carson
I ended up checking this book out from the library because it seemed to be the only decent biography on Rachel Carson. I didn't realize until I got home that it was written for middle schoolers. I read it anyway because I hadn't read any biographies on her.

This a great introduction to Rachel Carson, especially for children and young adults who have more than a passing interest in marine biology or environmental issues and who might even be considering devoting their lives to one, the other or both. If nothing else, it would be a good source for a paper or report that needs to be written.

This book was written in a way that reminds the reader that women weren't always treated as first class citizens - even after we got the vote. Ellen Levine does a great job illuminating Rachel Carson as a person, scientist and author of her generation without providing a history lesson or going into details that her audience might find boring.

The book contains many excerpts of Rachel Carson's work so that whoever is reading it can get a taste for how she wrote, if she hasn't read any of her books before. There are also excerpts from letters to and from Rachel.

There is a helpful bibliography at the end of the book that will point you in the write direction if you want to read more about Rachel Carson - and this book should really whet your appetite when it comes to learning more about the woman who pretty much single handedly sparked the environmental movement.