Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307763341 |
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| Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 05/18/2011 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | NOOK Book |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Sales rank: | 582,552 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
The Moon by Whalelight and Other Adventures among Bats, Penguins, Crocodilians and Whales
4 out of 5
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0 ratings.
5 reviews.
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The first non-fiction book I read. As a college freshman, I was amazed that there was a whole world of books out there I had never even considered looking at. I enjoyed it AND I learned somehing about the real world. It definitey changed my reasons for reading.
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This book had been on my reading list for a while, ever since I read The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds, which I loved. I finally got a hold of it through my library's inter-library exchange. (I love my library!)The book has 4 main sections focusing on 4 different animals: bats, crocodilians (alligators and crocodiles), whales, and penguins. I was really looking forward to the whale chapter, especially since part of it took place in Hawaii - and I really enjoyed it. But the surprise for me was the bat chapter. It was really informative and interesting, and I learned a lot.The one thing that's missing, which I think I mentioned in Rarest of the Rare as well, is photography. I'm not sure if she just never takes photos on her expeditions, but I really wish I could see some of the stuff she saw.Because to be honest, and I thought this throughout much of the book - I don't think I'll/we'll ever again see the scenes that Ackerman was lucky enough to experience. Just the sheer number of animals, often in rural or uninhabited places. I think that experience is gone, depressingly. For example, during the bats chapter, in my notes I wrote: 20 million bats all in one location? That would be quite a sight to see though I imagine you can't find something like that anymore. That makes me really sad.Even during the 80s, when Ackerman did most of the travel presented in the book, Merlin Tuttle, ecologist and bat researcher, says, "I personally know of caves where people have wiped out millions of bats in one day." Sigh. That being said, Dr. Tuttle is such an awesome scientist. And his words really resonated with me. A couple of choice quotes from him: "I never had any ambition to be anything but a good scientist. I was content to be a member of other conservation organizations and support their efforts. But for years the traditional organizations just ignored bats as too hopeless. If you couldn't raise money for an animal, it couldn't be helped. That's unfortunate. Part of our problems today come from the fact that even scientists and conservationists tend to take the easy ride and find an animal that's very popular with the public. They raise funds to help that animal, but often that's so easy and tempting that other animals that are just as valuable, and sometimes much *more* valuable, remain completely ignored." (p44) "It's a shame that people want to view animals as either good or bad. But as Emerson pointed out, a weed is just a flower out of place." (p44) "But this is often the case when it comes to animals ¿ by the time you eliminate them down to the point when everyone can agree that the species is officially endangered, it's already too late." (p47)One thing I really liked was reading about these scientists and researchers that Ackerman presented. I kept interrupting myself while reading to look up the names, and added books and articles to my reading lists. It was really informative. When I googled Dr. Tuttle, I found his Facebook page and did a bit of stalking. It's amazing the access the Internet has given us. Even just 10 years ago I wouldn't have been able to do this!I loved Ackerman's enthusiasm, which is always present in her books: "But a carnival of bats inhabits the world!"And her writing is so lyrical and expressive. She paints a picture of the world for you that I really love: There was nothing to do but wait. It is always like this for naturalists, and for poets - the long hours of travel and preparation, and then the longer hours of waiting. All for that one electric, pulse¿revving vision when the universe suddenly declares itself. A ravishing tug on the sleeve of our mortality. A view of life so astonishing as to make all of life newly astonishing: a spotted bat. (p33) On each side, sandstone cliffs, striped like sherbet, revealed layer after compressed layer of time. How can time be so rigid in rock and so molten as we live it? Underfoot, sheets of rock swirled red, yellow, white
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This book opened my world up when I read it twenty years ago. I'm very pleased to see how well it's held up
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Enjoyable and informative collection of four essays on animals and the people who study them: bats, crocodilian, whales, and penguins. I know some people don't like Ackerman's style -- often more poetic and prose -- but it never bothered me that much and is at a minimum here.
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