A magical and timely story of ecosystems restored to their former glory.
“When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
The Eagle Nature Trail in Eagle, Wisconsin, spans vast acres and centuries, although the idea of restoring it was conceived only in 2009. The gradual transformation of an impassable wasteland choked by invasive species into three discrete and diverse ecosystems frames Lawlor’s research into the area’s history. In accessible language, she chronicles the glacial origins of Eagle, the arrival of Indigenous peoples, “Euro-American” colonization and agricultural expansion, and the area’s eventual devastation and renewal. Although her descriptions of past happenstance sometimes fill the proverbial gaps a bit fancifully, the relish with which this research has been undertaken rings clearly in every word, holding reader attention throughout. Returning to the nature trail, a waltz through the four seasons explores how the trail brings the local community together, acting as a natural classroom and drawing volunteers from all walks of life to maintain the sanctity of the land they helped the wilds reclaim. Peppered with bright, almost bucolic photographs and quotes from local sources and free from the burden of proselytizing, this is more than a simple account of a wilderness restoration project. This is activism at its most accessible: the beautiful struggles of a region and community to make a large difference in a small world.
A magical and timely story of ecosystems restored to their former glory. (bibliography, source notes, photo credit, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9780823451654
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative.
This junior edition of Stewart’s lurid 2011 portrait gallery of the same name (though much less gleeful subtitle) loses none of its capacity for leaving readers squicked-out.
The author drops a few entries, notably the one on insect sexual practices, and rearranges toned-down versions of the rest into roughly topical sections. Beginning with the same cogent observation—“We are seriously outnumbered”—she follows general practice in thrillers of this ilk by defining “bug” broadly enough to include all-too-detailed descriptions of the life cycles and revolting or deadly effects of scorpions and spiders, ticks, lice, and, in a chapter evocatively titled “The Enemy Within,” such internal guests as guinea worms and tapeworms. Mosquitoes, bedbugs, the ubiquitous “Filth Fly,” and like usual suspects mingle with more-exotic threats, from the tongue-eating louse and a “yak-killer hornet” (just imagine) to the aggressive screw-worm fly that, in one cited case, flew up a man’s nose and laid hundreds of eggs…that…hatched. Morrow-Cribbs’ close-up full-color drawings don’t offer the visceral thrills of the photos in, for instance, Rebecca L. Johnson’s Zombie Makers (2012) but are accurate and finely detailed enough to please even the fussiest young entomologists.
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative. (index, glossary, resource lists) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61620-755-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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