Rachel Carson

“…Rachel Car­son­’s sto­ry can­not be fold­ed eas­i­ly into 32 pages. … Her Silent Spring, which care­ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed the effects of insec­ti­cides such as DDT on bird and ani­mal life and ulti­mate­ly on peo­ple, launched a huge gov­ern­men­tal effort to elim­i­nate that threat. The sto­ry ends with her death, at age 56 in 1964.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Beingess­ner’s light-filled paint and ink illus­tra­tions have an under­stat­ed, 1950s-era grace, which is com­ple­ment­ed by Lawlor’s qui­et­ly con­tem­pla­tive prose. Car­son emerges as a proud, con­sci­en­tious woman who nev­er allowed the con­straints of her era to inter­fere with her con­vic­tions. An epi­logue elab­o­rates on the sig­nif­i­cance of Silent Spring. Ages 6–10.” (Pub­lish­ers’ Week­ly)

“[Lawlor] dis­cuss­es Car­son­’s ear­ly years, includ­ing her innate love of nature and her ear­ly desire to become a writer. She describes Car­son­’s strug­gles to sup­port her fre­quent­ly impov­er­ished fam­i­ly as well as her fight to carve a place for her­self at a time when women sci­en­tists were scoffed at. … this book is a wor­thy intro­duc­tion to a woman whose work still influ­ences envi­ron­men­tal deci­sions today.” (School Library Jour­nal)

“Lawlor inter­weaves the most salient facts of the nat­u­ral­ist’s life (1907–1964) with such illu­mi­nat­ing details as needy extend­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers camp­ing out­side the Car­sons’ over­flow­ing house; or the chief of the U.S. Bureau of Fish­eries, where she final­ly got a job (‘one of only two pro­fes­sion­al women’), turn­ing down a piece Car­son had writ­ten for radio but sug­gest­ing she send it to The Atlantic—a move that set off her lit­er­ary career. … this acces­si­ble account folds a com­mend­able amount of sig­nif­i­cant infor­ma­tion into pic­ture book for­mat.” (The Horn Book)