With an engaging mix of memoir and science, Amy Seidl brings the reality of global warming to a personal level. As a mother, Seidl demonstrates how climate change has altered her daughters' experiences of their woods and garden, and the seasonal community events of her small New England town. As an ecologist, Seidl explains how natural upheaval occurs in the microcosms of our backyards and parks. While the human community, including Seidl's daughters, adapts to a changing climate, plants and animals also adapt, she shows, in ways both obvious and surprising.
An eloquent celebration of commitment to family, community, and the ever-so-fragile natural world . . . Regardless of where you live, this may very well be one of the most important books you'll ever read.—Howard Frank Mosher, author of A Stranger in the Kingdom
"A timely, important book—both troubling and lovely." —John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home
"This is the voice we need to hear now: a biologist mother, with no time for despair, bearing witness to the unraveling of the ecological world within her children's backyard-which is all of our children's backyard. With urgency and grace, Amy Seidl delivers the message I've been listening for."—Sandra Steingraber, PhD, author of Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood
"Early Spring is brave and eloquent testimony from a reliable witness about the extraordinary changes we face in the very nature of daily life on earth. It reminds us that the human heart and mind have their place in the order of things, too."—James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency
"With the mind of a scientist and the heart of a mom, Amy Seidl explores the effects of climate chaos on her home-ground. . . . A visionary personal inquiry that remains fixed on promise even in the face of grim and unsettling facts. This is a brave book."—Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
"Seidl's tender descriptions of her young daughters' encounters with the natural world-skipping rocks, choosing Halloween pumpkins from the garden and 'gorging on the abundance' of cherries picked off the tree-add personal poignancy to a subject 'few can stand to talk about at any length.'"—Publishers Weekly
Publisher: Beacon Press
Distributor: Random House, Inc.
Publication Date: 03-01-2010
Pages: 192
Measurements: 8.5in X 5.45in X .5in X .55lb
