The Sense of Wonder

Not long before she died in 1964, the noted environmental writer Rachel Carson wrote an essay for Woman's Home Companion magazine called "Helping Your Child to Wonder." In that essay--reprinted here, with photographs of natural subjects by Nick Kelsh--Carson urged parents to take their children to wild places in order to introduce them to the astonishing variety of life that exists all around us: to study birds, listen to the winds, and observe the stars. Too much of the child's subsequent education, she warns, will be devoted to dimming that "clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring" with which children are born; it is the parent's task to be an adult guide who can in turn rediscover the "excitement and mystery of the world we live in." Carson's words are timely, and this beautifully illustrated edition makes a fine gift for new and prospective mothers and fathers. --Gregory McNamee

• The Edge of the Sea
• The Sea Around Us, Special Edition
• Under the Sea-Wind (Penguin Classics)
• Silent Spring
• Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World
• Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy
• Silent Spring
• Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson
• The Sea Around Us
• Under the Sea Wind: 50th Anniversary Edition