This well-crafted success story of a species’ salvation will encourage budding environmentalists.
A species comes back from the brink of extinction with the help of human intervention in this beautifully painted nonfiction picture book.
Stretching from the late 1600s to the modern day, this book outlines the plight of the Española tortoise and its recovery. When pirates first visited Española Island, one of the Galápagos Islands, they found thousands of giant tortoises. Valued because they could be kept alive on very little food or water, the tortoises were captured as food sources for sailors on long journeys. Due to overhunting, the population dwindled to only three—and a clutch of eggs—counted by scientists in 1905. Diego hatched from those eggs and was later taken to the San Diego Zoo to live for 40 years. During that time, scientists realized the dire situation for the Española tortoises and started a breeding program. When it was discovered that Diego was an Española tortoise, he was brought to the breeding center to help repopulate the species. The program’s success—as Pattison writes, “Sometimes, humans get it right”—led to thousands of tortoises, including Diego, once again inhabiting Española Island. Pattison offers this dramatic story in accessible prose, using the appropriate scientific vocabulary in an understandable context. Each two-page spread offers a substantial amount of information but never overwhelms, and Zimmerman’s vibrant illustrations always illuminate the text. Pattison toggles between the greater story and Diego’s more personal involvement, giving readers a central character to follow. Important ideas and numbers are set apart in a larger font, making them good places for emergent readers to chime in. Zimmerman’s realistic paintings invite readers into the times and places described, animating the tortoises and their saga. Human features are less detailed than those of the tortoises, making it clear that the creatures are the heroes. Detailed endnotes provide more information about tortoises, stories about less successful species rescue attempts, notes on invasive species and the Galápagos Islands, and the names of conservation organizations readers can support.
This well-crafted success story of a species’ salvation will encourage budding environmentalists.Pub Date: June 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-62944-187-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: Mims House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An authoritative, engaging study of plant life, accessible to younger readers as well as adults.
A neurobiologist reveals the interconnectedness of the natural world through stories of plant migration.
In this slim but well-packed book, Mancuso (Plant Science/Univ. of Florence; The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior, 2018, etc.) presents an illuminating and surprisingly lively study of plant life. He smoothly balances expansive historical exploration with recent scientific research through stories of how various plant species are capable of migrating to locations throughout the world by means of air, water, and even via animals. They often continue to thrive in spite of dire obstacles and environments. One example is the response of plants following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Three decades later, the abandoned “Exclusion Zone” is now entirely covered by an enormous assortment of thriving plants. Mancuso also tracks the journeys of several species that might be regarded as invasive. “Why…do we insist on labeling as ‘invasive’ all those plants that, with great success, have managed to occupy new territories?” asks the author. “On a closer look, the invasive plants of today are the native flora of the future, just as the invasive species of the past are a fundamental part of our ecosystem today.” Throughout, Mancuso persuasively articulates why an understanding and appreciation of how nature is interconnected is vital to the future of our planet. “In nature everything is connected,” he writes. “This simple law that humans don’t seem to understand has a corollary: the extinction of a species, besides being a calamity in and of itself, has unforeseeable consequences for the system to which the species belongs.” The book is not without flaws. The loosely imagined watercolor renderings are vague and fail to effectively complement Mancuso’s richly descriptive prose or satisfy readers’ curiosity. Even without actual photos and maps, it would have been beneficial to readers to include more finely detailed plant and map renderings.
An authoritative, engaging study of plant life, accessible to younger readers as well as adults.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63542-991-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A meandering chronicle of a year on the road.
The bestselling author explores the lure of nomadism.
At the age of 51, childless and soon to be divorced, Junger spent much of one year walking 400 miles alongside railroad lines in the eastern U.S. with a changing cast of three companions and his dog. They called their trek “the Last Patrol”: an escape, “a temporary injunction against whatever was coming,” and an interlude of freedom from the restrictions and demands of conventional life. Because the swaths of property alongside railroad lines were “the least monitored” land in the country, it seemed a safe choice for the wanderers, who did not want to be mistaken for vagrants. “Most nights,” Junger notes, “we were the only people in the world who knew where we were.” The author’s contemplative, digressive narrative combines vivid details of the walk, which was completed in several segments, with political, social, and cultural history; anthropology; and science. He ruminates on nomadic society, hunter-gatherers, Indigenous peoples, the perilous escapes of runaway slaves, various wars, and conflicts that include Cain’s jealousy of Abel and Ireland’s Easter uprising. Sometimes these musings involve considerations of freedom; not always. “Throughout history,” he writes, “good people and bad have maintained their freedom by simply staying out of reach of those who would deprive them of it. That generally meant walking a lot.” Nomadism has romantic appeal for Junger, just as, he claims, it has had for “the settled world.” To hunter-gatherers, working the land seemed a form of subservience; nomadic societies, asserts the author, were more equitable than societies centered around land ownership. Among hunter-gatherers, “although leaders understandably had more prestige than other people, they didn’t have more rights.” Although the trip did not yield epiphanies, Junger finally arrived at a place where he decided to stop wandering and step into his future. It was time “to face my life.”
A meandering chronicle of a year on the road.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982153-41-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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