Featured News and Events
Overlooked No More: Beatrix Potter, Author of 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit'
By Jess Bidgood
Published Jan. 19, 2024Updated Jan. 22, 2024
This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.
With "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," Beatrix Potter created what would become one of the world's best-known children's book characters.
The book, about a cheeky rabbit who steals vegetables from the garden of one Mr. McGregor and loses his coat and shoes in a narrow escape, became a literary juggernaut that has sold more than 45 million copies. It also spawned a merchandising empire and has left an indelible imprint on children's book publishing.
The Next Page: Rachel Carson, a child of the Allegheny
Linda Lear - July 8, 2018
In March, Jill Lepore, the Harvard historian popular New Yorker staff writer, published a thoughtful essay criticizing the new Library of America edition of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” with its attendant collection of essays, for failing to mention Carson’s earlier writing on the sea. Continue reading on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Rachel Carson: Voice of Nature," featuring Linda Lear
Focus on Rachel Carson’s connection to Pennsylvania and the impact her work has had on PA environmental and conservation policy. Inspired by a supportive mother, her natural surroundings and the Allegheny River, it was her formative years in Springdale that would shape her passionate environmental ethic.
Aired: 03/22/18
Guest Post by David Klinger
David Klinger worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1977 to 2012.
From time to time the Editor asks a guest expert to comment on a timely issue; one that Rachel Carson cared deeply about and which relates directly to the body of her work. Wildlife was central to her vision of environmental protection and birds particularly figured in her writing and research.
Carson wrote about birds, their importance to humans, their habitats and behavior in all of her books. A sanderling was her focus in Under the Sea-wind, various seabirds were featured in The Sea Around Us and shore birds took center stage in The Edge of the Sea. In Silent Spring the death of robins through human agency was central to her intention to highlight the potential of human destruction of the natural world. In December 2017, the Trump Administration announced its intention to severely limit the protection of migratory birds and to alter the direction of historic federal policy.
David Klinger worked as a writer and editor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1977 to 2012, He frequently writes for newspapers and magazines on wildlife issues. He lives in Boise, Idaho and has kindly contributed this essay explaining this latest action against birds.
Featured News
- The Tweeting of the Lambs: A Day in the Life of a Modern Shepherd
written by Sam Knight April 27, 2018, published by The New Yorker.
- Celebrating a Beloved Bunny
Book review including Linda Lear's Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature written by Sarah Harrison Smith, October 23, 2017.
- Rachel Carson
PBS, January 24, 2017 [preview]
Featuring Linda Lear.
When Silent Spring was published in September 1962 it became an instant bestseller and would go on to spark dramatic changes in the way the government regulated pesticides. Drawn from Carson’s own writings, letters and recent scholarship, the film illuminates both the public and private life of the soft-spoken, shy scientist who launched the modern environmental movement.