Overview
David Carroll has dedicated his life to art and to wetlands. He is as passionate about swamps, bogs, and vernal ponds and the creatures who live in them as most of us are about our families and closest friends. He knows frogs and snakes, muskrats and minks, dragonflies, water lilies, cattails, sedges—everything that swims, flies, trudges, slithers, or sinks its roots in wet places. In this "intimate and wise book" (Sue Hubbell), Carroll takes us on a lively, unforgettable yearlong journey, illustrated with his own elegant drawings, through the wetlands and reveals why they are so important to his life and ours—and to all life on Earth.
Synopsis
David Carroll has dedicated his life to art and to wetlands. He is as passionate about swamps, bogs, and vernal ponds and the creatures who live in them as most of us are about our families and closest friends. He knows frogs and snakes, muskrats and minks, dragonflies, water lilies, cattails, sedges—everything that swims, flies, trudges, slithers, or sinks its roots in wet places. In this "intimate and wise book" (Sue Hubbell), Carroll takes us on a lively, unforgettable yearlong journey, illustrated with his own elegant drawings, through the wetlands and reveals why they are so important to his life and ours—and to all life on Earth.
Boston Globe
But it is Carroll's gift of sensing the ecosystem while detailing egg mass or footprint that sets him apart. The fact that he can set this all in prose and finely crafted pen and inks and watercolors proved that he is of Renaissance caliber. His hungry eye devours all of life.
Editorials
Boston Globe
But it is Carroll's gift of sensing the ecosystem while detailing egg mass or footprint that sets him apart. The fact that he can set this all in prose and finely crafted pen and inks and watercolors proved that he is of Renaissance caliber. His hungry eye devours all of life.Publishers Weekly -
Artist, writer and environmentalist Carroll completes his "wet-sneaker trilogy" (The Year of the Turtle; Trout Reflections) with this intimate and impassioned exploration of wetlands throughout the northeastern U.S. By attempting to capture the "defining essence" of these places--their hydrology, structure, signature plant and animal species--Carroll hopes to inspire both a greater appreciation of wetlands and a desire to help protect them. An ardent student of swamps since his first childhood encounter with a spotted turtle, the author is at his best describing the often-overlooked natural dramas unfolding around him: great congresses of salamanders engaged in communal love play; doomed tadpoles searching desperately for shade and water during a drought; a painted turtle's futile attempts to elude a determined raccoon. A patient and gifted observer, Carroll returns to the same haunts season after season in search of old friends like Ariadne, a spotted turtle he has met each spring for 14 years. Amateur naturalists will especially enjoy his carefully detailed descriptions and line drawings, and his thorough knowledge of wetland species. Carroll's anger about the threats facing these increasingly rare areas, and the scorn he evinces toward many environmentalists, strike the only discordant notes in an otherwise lyrical and reflective book. 150 b&w line drawings. Author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
Put on your waders, get ready to get a little wet and dirty, and join Carroll in a fascinating, educational year touring freshwater wetlands. Carroll guides his readers through various habitats (vernal pools, marshes, shrub swamps, ponds, floodplains, bogs, and fens), starting each tour in early spring and leaving when winter's ice slows or suspends activity. Emphasis is very much on amphibian life, but other flora and fauna and the hydrology of each habitat are also explained, making a complete portrait. Carroll succeeds in creating appreciation for these criticallly important habitats and a concern for preserving them. This volume, which completes his "wet-sneaker trilogy" (The Year of the Turtle; Trout Reflections), unmistakably belongs in every natural history, environmental, and public library collection.--Nancy J. Moeckel, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Thomas Palmer
Though he presents his findings as an illustrated daybook, this is no simple record of facts, but a thorough account of the distinguishing features of swamps, marshes, floodplains, bogs, and vernal pools, indexed to aid reference....Carroll's quiet manner and effortless sensitivity to detail suffuse his wet-bottomed landscapes with a dreamlike quality shaded by knowledge of how quickly such places can disappear.— Christian Science Monitor