Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson by Amy Ehrlich

Ehrlich, Amy. (2003). Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson. San Diego, CA: Silver Whistle,
Harcourt, Inc.

Grade Level:
I would recommend this book for students in grades Pre-K – 3.

Author Credibility:
Ehrlich lists her sources in the Bibliography section of the book. She also thanks the Rachel Carson Council, Inc. for their help with the book. Ehrlich has written several children’s books and won several awards. This book won the following awards: John Burroughs List of Nature Books for Young Readers, Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, and Parents’ Choice Recommended Title.

Summary:
The story begins as young Rachel Carson finds a seashell in her back yard. This is odd because she does not live near the ocean. As a young child Rachel likes to write stories. She sends on of her stories to a magazine. It is published and she receives the Silver Badge for this story. While in college to be a writer, Rachel has to take a Biology class. She decides to change her major to biology after taking this class. Rachel had to take care of her family financially. To do this she got a job editing documents for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. She took a notebook with her wherever she went and wrote about nature. She decided while watching hawks on Hawk Mountain that she would like to earn money from her writings.Rachel wrote about the life in the oceans. She would collect specimens and take them home to study under the microscope, but she always returned the animals to their home. Rachel lived near a patch of woods. When she saw the roads expanding she was afraid the woods would be lost. She tried to buy them, but the owners would not sell her the land. When Rachel heard that birds were dying after poisions were sprayed to kill mosquitos she started investingating to find out why. She wrote a book called Silent Spring about what she had discovered. This book caused a lot of controversy. The companies that made the poisons did not like it and attacked the book. On the other hand, committees were formed to investigate. This committees found that pesticides were harming the animals. During all of this Rachel was battling with cancer. She lost the fight on April 14, 1964. After her death a wildlife refuge was named in her honor, The Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve.

Standards:
Science:
Science as Inquiry
Life Science
Earth and Space Science
Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

Illustrations:
The illustrations in this book were done by Wendell Minor. They consist of paintings done in watercolor and gouache. Illustrations were on one page while text was on the other. A small drawing adorned the top of the page with the text. The occasional two page illustration spread was found in the book. They are beautifully colored paintings that relate to the text.

Access Features:
The book is divided into chapters. Each chapter is headed with a title and a date as the subtitle. The book also includes a Bibliography.

How I would use the book in the classroom:
This would be a good book to study while studying the effects humans have on the environment. I also thought this book would be good to introduce young students to the concept of chapters.

My response to the book:
I enjoyed reading this book. Before I read the book I had never heard of Rachel Carson. I learned a basic knowledge about her from this book. The illustrations in the book were wonderful. I loved looked through the book at these paintings. I also liked how the book was divided. Each page was a chapter. The title of the chapter told the reader what the chapter would be about.

Related Texts:
*Rachel Carson: Pioneer of Ecology (Women of Our Time) by Kathleen V. Kudlinski
*Rachel Carson: Preserving a Sense of Wonder by Thomas Locker
*The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson
*Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson by Rachel Carson

Other:
The end pages of this book are a light blue with seashells outlined all over. Rachel Carson worked a lot near the ocean. Her first experience with nature was finding a seashell in her back yard. The cover art shows a great deal about Rachel’s life. The migration of the butterflies on the cover is also talked about later on in her life. The hawks she watched and wrote about are also on the cover. The author’s writing is very descriptive, similes and metaphors are used often.