I love this series!

We are transported through the stories of women scientists to different ecosystems and the animals living within them. We start with Amanda and Heather who are scuba diving studying seahorses that founded Project Seahorse with the aim to protect marine ecosystems. Then we follow Bella who managed to correspond with THE David Attenborough and ended up banning the use of animals in UK circuses. Next, we meet Bindi who was positively influenced by her nature-loving parents and wants to pass that love on in a detached from nature society.

Biruté's love for orangutans started by reading Curious George to finding herself reintroducing over 500 individuals back to the wild. Christina became an expert on hippos and got known for her dedication to a little hippo named Fiona. Corina and her love for birds inspired the Black birders initiative! Christina and her enamoured passion for capturing the beauty of the ocean with her camera, The ocean but sharks specifically due to their bad reputation additionally, inspired Eugenie to become an ichthyologist and break down some myths around the fear of sharks. Gillian with her view on nature is that there are so many stories to be told and narrated to the world. Then we have filmmaker Gunjan who would through high altitudes and jungles to capture the wildlife. We meet Hana who is determined to fight to preserve the nature of her country, Iraq despite all the difficulties she is facing. Of course, such a book could not exist without mentioning Jane and her work as a primatologist (working with apes and showing their connection to humans). 

In the second half of the book, we meet Julie, a conservationist biologist and her love at first sight with a lemur when she was 13. You may know Kirsten Bell as a famous actress from Holywood but she is also one of the proponents of the 'Adopt, Don't shop' mantra. She absolutely is a dog person! Then we have Kristen and her love for bats whilst we learn that everything that shaped her career started as a Girl Scout project. So inspiring! Reptiles are not as loved as other cuter and fluffier species but that did not stop Laura from becoming a herpetologist and seeing their beauty reflected in her eyes. We then meet Leela, an expert in lions who tries to reintroduce this species that has become extinct in parts of the world such as Egypt where she is from. Another conservationist called Maria loves hard-scaled pangolins and other endangered species and speaks for them! We then continue with Olivia and her butterflies. She is a pollinator activist. How freaking cool is that of a job description???

In Nigeria, we meet Rachel, another conservationist, working mainly around the Niger Delta area. Saengduean is a person where basically animals go for retirement to live their last days on this Earth as well as animals that just need recovery from abuse, trauma and/or injury. Meet Sami a talented artist that brings beauty to any peculiar animal you may think of. Exhibit designer, Sue, recreates habits in zoos inspired by their homelands for the animals to feel more at home. Temple, an autistic woman, decided to take action and educate people about her condition as well as talk about how important it is to address farm animal welfare. Last but not least, we learn about Tolani, a veterinarian who has even founded an animal hospital to host both 2 and 4-legged creatures.

I cannot wait to teach my daughter about all these women through these books and inspire her to become one with nature. :) Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Gaia and Luna by Mark Newton 

A book review 

 

🌍🌍🌍🌍/5 

 

'The very fragility of Life seemed rather strangely, to be fundamental to its evolution'. 

 

'Amidst a cornucopia of different shapes and forms, great spheres were fashioned to spin and turn at the behest of their conductor in a glorious symphony of creation that travelled ever outward in a timeless mechanism of celestial beauty.' 

 

*Gaia's appearance had settled into a relatively gentle and multifaceted dynamic that was a constant source of wonder to her ashen and largely invariant satellite.' 

 

'And why were there two little dots of the Yin or the Yang in the halves of the other? And, why black or white? Why so binary, monochrome and stark? And what was going on at the interfaces between these different areas? In her now extensive experience, it was always the interfaces, the surfaces where everything happened. This symbol, however, intriguing and challenging as it was, seemed not to be able to say anything about that, not the insane dynamic that Life had always shown?' 

 

'Was this the true purpose of the universe? To create the harmony of form from which meaning and truth may subsequently be derived?' 

 

🌍 You know what? If you travel by plane or spaceship (who knows?) I would absolutely recommend you pick up this book as it made my reading experience absolutely perfect and so much more meaningful. (beware that I say this as a major mood reader). 

 

🌍 Wow. Okay, where do I start? Planets and satellites are personified. We follow them since the BIG BANG that created everything. We get to experience these 100-something pages the way they view time, changes and history. We mainly follow the Moon and planet Earth as per the title but we do get to know Mars, Venus, and Jupiter as well among others. The writing fits the story so so well. This is exactly how I would envision celestial entities talking if I had ever done that prior to reading this book (well maybe apart from the occasional swearing that threw me off sometimes as otherwise, the language was so intelligent without it being obnoxious or pretentious.). It took me maybe a few pages to get used to it, but once I did I could feel the vastness of space and time, the poetic and sensitive eyes of the author as well as the MUSIC. (which is later talked about and took me by surprise that the feelings of music were evoked naturally by Mark Newton's writing!) 

 

🌍 It was a great brush up of the Earth's history actually, and a very clever way to bring all this information from boring textbooks and make it alive and animated. My favourite part was when the up then unknown concept of LIFE was introduced and how the Earth and the faraway sister and observer, the Moon, experienced it. 

Additionally, I truly appreciated the social commentary that went it this book showcased the ungratefulness and greediness of us, apes, towards the wonders of our planet and universe. As an environmental activist myself, I would love to read it along with others concerned about the future of our species. 

 

Highly recommend; a unique book that will surprise you. 

 

PS: I love figuring out something unique about the author or something that sounds out and I have the hunch that he loves the word infinitesimal. :)) 

 

Thank you Netgalley and Loudhailer Books for offering me a copy of this book, in exchange of an honest review. 

 

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