Synopses & Reviews
Nothing could be more important than the health of our children, and no one is better suited to examine the threats against it than Sandra Steingraber. Once called "a poet with a knife," she blends precise science with lyrical memoir. In
Living Downstream she spoke as a biologist and cancer survivor; in
Having Faith she spoke as an ecologist and expectant mother, viewing her own body as a habitat. Now she speaks as the scientist mother of two young children, enjoying and celebrating their lives while searching for ways to protect them — and all children — from the toxic, climate-threatened world they inhabit.
Each chapter of this engaging and unique book focuses on one inevitable ingredient of childhood — everything from pizza to laundry to homework to the "Big Talk" — and explores the underlying social, political, and ecological forces behind it. Through these everyday moments, Steingraber demonstrates how closely the private, intimate world of parenting connects to the public world of policy-making and how the ongoing environmental crisis is, fundamentally, a crisis of family life.
Review
"Steingraber writes passionately about the things that matter most to her, her family and the environment...smoothly shifting from events in her life to a broader view...Steingraber wants to change the world even as she remains firmly planted in the neighborhood, seeking a way to make life better than most of us have come to expect." Booklist
Review
"Writing as both a scientist and mother of two children...Steingraber cites links between rising chronic childhood diseases and toxic chemical exposures. She takes a broad view, looking at increases in the prevalence of asthma, learning disabilities and autism, as she tries to understand her own household and life as a mom." Buffalo News
Review
"Through her newest book...Sandra has once again provided us, through well-documented case studies, the opportunity to examine our lifestyles choices and our surrounding environments...Sandra and her stories are gifts: golden information for busy parents who do not have the time for months of research." Power of One Woman Blog
Review
"Sandra Steingraber's first book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, left reviewers calling her 'the new Rachel Carson.' It is an apt comparison. Not since 1962, when Carson courageously challenged the chemical industry in Silent Spring, has a scientist woven so much revelation and research together with such gorgeous and persuasive prose. In Raising Elijah, Steingraber makes a case for 'outspoken, fullthroated heroism in the face of the great moral crisis of our day.' She girds readers for the struggle we must take up if we are to wrest our world from the embrace of the suicidals." Laura Orlando, Ms. Magazeine (Read the entire Ms. Magazine review)
Synopsis
Today's Rachel Carson looks at the toxic, ecologically fractured world children now inhabit.
About the Author
Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., biologist, activist, and author, is Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Ithaca College in New York.