by Richard G. Fernicola ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2001
Readers may prefer swimming alone in fin-dotted waters to muddling through this modern horror.
A toothless tale of pelagic terror.
For two weeks in the summer of 1916, as fans of Peter Benchley’s Jaws will recall, New Jersey beachgoers were forced from the water by a roving shark—or, as medical doctor and conservationist Fernicola hazards, a group of sharks—that had chomped five swimmers to death. Already burdened with a polio epidemic and unseasonably hot weather, the state government had its hands full trying not only to find and exterminate the culprit(s), but also to calm panicked hordes of humans. In the first enterprise it may or may not have been successful, since sharks were destroyed wherever they were encountered; time took care of the second task: war and other calamities eventually drove the doings of the New Jersey sharks from the front page. Fernicola relates this history in a manner that is sometimes melodramatic (“modern shark knowledge suggests that the sharks are always there and capable of attacking”), sometimes breezy (“President Wilson was one of the guys to look to for help. Eventually, the House of Representatives would appropriate $5,000 to search for and eradicate the New Jersey shark threat. In those days, five grand was a lot of money”), but never very good. The narrative, though dotted with useful natural-historical information on sharks, is confused, rambling, and repetitive; much of it is given over to determining the identity of the homicidal shark (or sharks) who committed such heinous crimes all those years ago, a forensic exercise of limited utility at best—just where sharks will turn up and what mood they’ll be in are matters subject to many variables, as Fernicola admits, and thus knowing just what kind of shark ate those poor swimmers will not be of much help in protecting modern-day oceangoers from a similarly gruesome fate.
Readers may prefer swimming alone in fin-dotted waters to muddling through this modern horror.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58574-297-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Lyons Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
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by Rachel Carson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 1962
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!
It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.
Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962
ISBN: 061825305X
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962
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by Rachel Carson ; illustrated by Nikki McClure
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by Brian Fies illustrated by Brian Fies ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2019
Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.
A new life and book arise from the ashes of a devastating California wildfire.
These days, it seems the fires will never end. They wreaked destruction over central California in the latter months of 2018, dominating headlines for weeks, barely a year after Fies (Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?, 2009) lost nearly everything to the fires that raged through Northern California. The result is a vividly journalistic graphic narrative of resilience in the face of tragedy, an account of recent history that seems timely as ever. “A two-story house full of our lives was a two-foot heap of dead smoking ash,” writes the author about his first return to survey the damage. The matter-of-fact tone of the reportage makes some of the flights of creative imagination seem more extraordinary—particularly a nihilistic, two-page centerpiece of a psychological solar system in which “the fire is our black hole,” and “some veer too near and are drawn into despair, depression, divorce, even suicide,” while “others are gravitationally flung entirely out of our solar system to other cities or states, and never seen again.” Yet the stories that dominate the narrative are those of the survivors, who were part of the community and would be part of whatever community would be built to take its place across the charred landscape. Interspersed with the author’s own account are those from others, many retirees, some suffering from physical or mental afflictions. Each is rendered in a couple pages of text except one from a fellow cartoonist, who draws his own. The project began with an online comic when Fies did the only thing he could as his life was reduced to ash and rubble. More than 3 million readers saw it; this expanded version will hopefully extend its reach.
Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3585-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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