RACHEL CARSON: Pioneer of Ecology

A brief, ho-hum biography of the author-scientist who wrote The Sea Around Us and Silent Spring. Though Carson died in 1964 and there has been ample time to evaluate her contribution to the study of ecology, Kudlinski makes no attempt to do so. Similar information is found in Lathram's Rachel Carson (1973). Kudlinski describes Carson's solitary childhood in rural Pennsylvania with an overprotective mother, and her early ambition to be a writer (she published a story in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1918, at age 11). Though the author notes that women in the 1920's were discriminated against in colleges and in nontraditional careers, she makes no comment when reporting that Carson scored highest on a Bureau of Fisheries Civil Service Exam for biologist, but was then hired by the bureau as a script-writer instead. With its brief outline of Carson's books and career, this will help fill the demand for short biographies of women; but it lacks the rich sense of wonder found in Carson's own work.