Rachel Louise Carson held all of her mother's hopes and dreams, ever since their nature walks in Springdale, Pennsylvania. As everyone else in her life moves through their disappointments, Rachel discovers a passion for writing and then in college, biology. She soon becomes the breadwinner for her sickly family, abandoning her dreams of a doctorate as she works for the Department of Fishing and Wildlife. This combines her talent for words and her passion for biology that leads to her publication of many biological works. It is easy to identify with Rachel as she fights the conventions of the time to carve out a place in the world on her own terms.

This is a children’s fiction book in verse, based on the life of naturalist Rachel Carson. The author’s tone is inviting, and the nature-based illustrations are enchanting. For the right reader, this would be a much-loved and inspiring story.

Ann E Burg brings her history story telling in verse skills to Rachel Carson's life with the finesse for which she is so well known. From Rachel's love of stories in grade school, through discovering a deep love for biology in college, and how these two skills combined brought her success in science. Rachel Carson is known for recognizing the effects of the intense pesticides on the birds and insects, and pushing for change to protect the environment from being poisoned. Ann Burg's verse sings this story.

I think all that I knew about Rachel Carson before this book was that she wrote Silent Spring. So I learned a lot from this novel, stripped down as it was to the barest impressions. I hadn't realized her importance in the development of science communication as a field, more than just the importance of ecology. This is a quick read. Being a verse novel, it's more about impressions than details. Still, it's a solid way to supplement more factual education.

This new novel in verse will be perfect to add to upper elementary and middle school collections. It rides the line between memoir and fiction (the author notes that pieces have been fictionalized, or small creative liberties have been taken). This is Rachel Carson's story of growing up and becoming the amazing scientist who catalyzed the American modern environmental movement in the 1960s. She is most famous for Silent Spring, but this novel in verse chronicles who she was as a young woman while growing up--quiet, simple, family-oriented, and driven. I really loved this one, and I will be adding it to my middle school library collection. It's a cool way to expose students to Rachel Carson's accomplishments before they may be ready to tackle reading Silent Spring or her scientific publications.

This was a beautiful interpretation of Rachel Carson's life. The illustrations were a wonderful addition to the verse and overall story. I do wish there was some more information or suggestions in the back for further readings on Rachel Carson and her works though. Overall a lovely read.

Force of Nature is a middle grade book about the life of Rachel Carson. While based of fact, the story is billed as a fictional work.

Rachel was making her way in the world when women were offered very little respect in the professional world. She was advised more than once to stay away from the science field as this was a male dominated profession.
In lyrical words, the author vividly demonstrates Rachel’s deep love and respect for nature. Her first book, Under The Sea Wind, was published in 1941 and the text presents the tedious the practice of writing, typing, editing and publishing in that day, compared to the ease of computer editing today. The author states, she was mentally and physically spent after completing a book.
Her family life wasn’t easy due to loss and responsibility of an ageing mother and caring for her sister’s very young son after she died of pneumonia. Rachel had her own health issues, one, a cyst/tumor in her breast that went untreated because her doctor lied to her saying it was benign and she needed no further treatment. Why? She speculated the doctor didn’t think a frail female could take bad news like that.

While I certainly enjoyed this quick read about Rachel Carson, I don’t think it will have a lot of appeal to middle school readers. I do think some may be impressed that she had a story published in a Children’s magazine at age 11.
The plus of this account is the strength and stamina displayed by a young woman foraging her way into a male dominated world.
Also I felt the end was very abrupt, but I think the book was meant to be short, highlighting the main aspects of Rachel Carson’s short life. I wonder what she would have contributed to this world had she lived past age 56.
The cover art is Beautiful.

This cradle to grave look at writer/scientist/activist Rachel Carson delves into what influences in her life helped her to become the voice for nature she is known as. Using a novel-in-verse format, author Ann E. Burg draws on Carson’s writings, as well as research about her, to create a fictional account to tell the story. With a detailed look at her childhood—including the role her mother and father played in shaping her outlook, as well as how she struggled against the patriarchal scientific world which dismissed women throughout her studies—the story progresses slowly through the years, with several time jumps to focus on the more important events in her life. And though Burg’s verse does sing in many spots, I had hoped for more lyricism to showcase Carson’s love of nature and fewer details about her siblings (who often disappointed her and died early), travel details, and other minutiae. Sophie Blackall’s art is lovely, as always, and helps to bring the story to life.

I received an ARC of this title through the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic Press for this DRC.
This is a novel in verse about the life of scientist/writer Rachel Carson. Carson is a well-known naturalist but this book brings it back to her simple of love of walking outside and the wonders of looking into a microscope. It is amazing how firmly she stayed on her path with all the sadness in her family life. I felt it was a beautiful book and I was grateful for the author’s note in the back.

#ForceofNature #NetGalley

Force of Nature
By Ann E. Burg

I was excited to see a middle grade book about Rachel Carson in my Net Galley feed. It’s so hard to find good books on scientists that hit home for this age. Unfortunately, this one missed the mark for me.

I love Ann Burg’s choice to do this as a novel in verse - it seems so fitting for a novel about Rachel Carson. Once I saw that was the style Burg chose, I had a hard time imagining a Rachel Carson novel any other way. I did find, however that this read more like a journal than a novel in verse.

There was a lot of information about day-to-day life and big events in Carson’s life, but I didn’t get a sense of her passion. I did see that family was important, but never truly understood what she loved about nature. In the books, she did enjoy walks, but it wasn’t clear what inspired her enough to fight for a position in the world of science.

“Force of Nature” also documented that Carson wrote award winning books, coming short of revealing why Carson was so impassioned about her topics of choice or why they mattered to the people who read them. The hard work of writing them and the joy of being famous really took center stage and I feel like the depth of Carson’s work was lost in that depiction.

I also feel like this book would be a bit confusing for children with no background information. For example, there is a brief mention of DDT being bad, but what DDT was isn’t really explained. The book mentions that it makes bird shells weak and causes problems to the environment, but the understanding of those impacts is hard to grasp without prior knowledge.

In many ways this is a good step in the right direction. Rachel Carson is a fascinating individual who contributed much to the worlds of science AND literature — such a challenging task. I feel like this book is lacking the passion and background information that would ignite a fire in middle grade students making them eager to learn more.

I do think this book would appeal to students who are already familiar with Rachel Carson and are eager to learn more about her personal life.

This book was so good, and it was a true story?! I loved learning about a woman in science, especially because it was long time ago and that is unusual!

I enjoyed the way Ann E. Burg wrote this, it had a great concept overall and I really enjoyed getting to know Rachel as a character. It had a great concept and was written in a way to engage the reader.

A story written in verse, it was harder to keep my attention and didn’t pull me in the way novels often do. It was well written and a pleasant story but a bit of a chore to get through.