The need for a children's books on the biblical teaching about gender was impressed upon the heart of both B. Niles and Janielle Lee independently. Their desire is to help parents counter the confusion in our culture about identity and gender by sharing God's truth about gender with their young children in an engaging yet sensitive manner. Carl the Seaturtle's Journey to truth is the first book in the Journey to Truth Children's Series which uses characters from the animal kingdom to display and illuminate the truth of God's Word, that He only made males and females in both the animal kingdom and in humanity. It also strives to provide a platform of discussion around the subject with their children.
The story of an ancient sea turtle and what its survival says about our future, from the award-winning writer and naturalist Though nature is indifferent to the struggles of her creatures, the human effect on them is often premeditated. The distressing decline of sea turtles in Pacific waters and their surprising recovery in the Atlantic illuminate what can go both wrong and right from our interventions, and teach us the lessons that can be applied to restore health to the world's oceans and its creatures. As Voyage of the Turtle, Carl Safina's compelling natural history adventure makes clear, the fate of the astonishing leatherback turtle, whose ancestry can be traced back 125 million years, is in our hands. Writing with verve and color, Safina describes how he and his colleagues track giant pelagic turtles across the world's oceans and onto remote beaches of every continent. As scientists apply lessons learned in the Atlantic and Caribbean to other endangered seas, Safina follows leatherback migrations, including a thrilling journey from Monterey, California, to nesting grounds on the most remote beaches of Papua, New Guinea. The only surviving species of its genus, family, and suborder, the leatherback is an evolutionary marvel: a "reptile" that behaves like a warm-blooded dinosaur, an ocean animal able to withstand colder water than most fishes and dive deeper than any whale. In his peerless prose, Safina captures the delicate interaction between these gentle giants and the humans who are finally playing a significant role in their survival. "Magnificent . . . A joyful, hopeful book. Safina gives us ample reasons to be enthralled by this astonishing ancient animal—and ample reasons to care." -- The Los Angeles Times
Powerhouse team Douglas Wood and Jon J Muth present a sequel to Old Turtle, the award-winning wisdom tale of peace and love for the earth. Seekers of all ages have been inspired by the stirring message of Old Turtle, the beloved, award-winning wisdom tale of peace. Now Old Turtle returns in a timeless story about love, acceptance, and the nature of truth.Long ago, as truth descended onto earth, it split in two: one piece landing among the people and the other blazing through the sky. When the people discover the piece of truth, it gives them strength and happiness. But over time, it turns them arrogant and greedy. They do not share their truth with others, wars rage on, and the earth begins to suffer. Then a Little Girl eager for change journeys to find Old Turtle, seeking the precious piece of wisdom that will mend the people's broken truth, making it -- and them -- whole once again.Douglas Wood's stirring and eloquent fable, soulfully illustrated in luminous watercolor by Jon J Muth, offers readers of all ages inspiration, hope, and a healing vision of peace.
An essential feature of religious experience across many cultures is the intuitive feeling of God's presence. More than any rituals or doctrines, it is this experience that anchors religious faith, yet it has been largely ignored in the scientific literature on religion.Starting with a vivid narrative account of the life-threatening hike that triggered his own mystical experience, biologist John Wathey takes the reader on a scientific journey to find the sources of religious feeling and the illusion of God's presence. His book delves into the biological origins of this compelling feeling, attributing it to innate neural circuitry that evolved to promote the mother-child bond. Dr. Wathey argues that evolution has programmed the infant brain to expect the presence of a loving being who responds to the child's needs. As the infant grows into adulthood, this innate feeling is eventually transferred to the realm of religion, where it is reactivated through the symbols, imagery, and rituals of worship. The author interprets our various conceptions of God in biological terms as illusory supernormal stimuli that fill an emotional and cognitive vacuum left over from infancy. These insights shed new light on some of the most vexing puzzles of religion, like the popular belief in a god who is judgmental and punishing, yet also unconditionally loving; the extraordinary tenacity of faith; the greater religiosity of women relative to men; religious obsessions with sex; the mysterious compulsion to pray; the seemingly irrepressible feminine attributes of God, even in traditionally patriarchal religions; and the strange allure of cults. Finally, Dr. Wathey considers the hypothesis that religion evolved to foster reproductive success, arguing that, in an age of potentially ruinous overpopulation, magical thinking has become a luxury we can no longer afford, one that distracts us from urgent threats to our planet.Deeply researched yet elegantly written in a jargon-free and accessible style, this book presents a compelling interpretation of the evolutionary origins of spirituality and religion.
This compelling addition to the award-winning Scientists in the Field series explores the leatherback sea turtle's remarkable natural history and recounts the extraordinary efforts by scientists trying to save them.
The inspiring biography of the adventuresome naturalist Carol Ruckdeschel and her crusade to save her island home from environmental disaster. In a “moving homage . . . that artfully articulates the ferocities of nature and humanity,” biographer Will Harlan captures the larger-than-life story of biologist, naturalist, and ecological activist Carol Ruckdeschel, known to many as the wildest woman in America. She wrestles alligators, eats roadkill, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built by hand in an island wilderness. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall, Carol is a self-taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park off the coast of Georgia (Kirkus Reviews). Cumberland, the country’s largest and most biologically diverse barrier island, is celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie once owned much of the island, and in recent years, Carnegie heirs and the National Park Service have clashed with Carol over the island’s future. What happens when a dirt-poor naturalist with only a high school diploma becomes an outspoken advocate on a celebrated but divisive island? Untamed is the story of an American original who fights for what she believes in, no matter the cost, “an environmental classic that belongs on the shelf alongside Carson, Leopold, Muir, and Thoreau” (Thomas Rain Crowe, author of Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods). “Vivid. . . . Ms. Ruckdeschel’s biography, and the way this wandering soul came to settle for so many decades on Cumberland Island, is big enough on its own, but Mr. Harlan hints at bigger questions.” —The Wall Street Journal “Wild country produces wild people, who sometimes are just what’s needed to keep that wild cycle going. This is a memorable portrait.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature “Deliciously engrossing. . . . Readers are in for a wild ride.” —The Citizen-Times
Part odyssey, part pilgrimage, this epic personal narrative follows the author's exploration of coasts, islands, reefs, and the sea's abyssal depths. Scientist and fisherman Carl Safina takes readers on a global journey of discovery, probing for truth about the world's changing seas, deftly weaving adventure, science, and political analysis.
And Thats the Truth! Meaningful fiction to stimulate your mind and nurture your soul is a treasury of short fiction stories. Most of the narrators in Part One are animals talking about themselves. You learn how dozens of animals live, eat, and survive through dialogue and description. Look, too, for inanimate objects to spring to life and talk about themselves: a houseplant, a stop sign, a dollar bill, and others. Part Two gives you traditional fictional stories with lively characters and believable or not-so-believable storylines. All of the stories leave you with a nugget of wisdom or a bit of a chuckle. Sprinkled throughout Part Two are a few short articles of general interest non-fiction. Whether you read the stories in order or at random, you will come away enriched with inspirational and encouraging accounts that stimulate your mind and nurture your soul.
In this sequel to the award winning Talking Rocks an earth scientist and an Ojibwe elder travel across Minnesota exploring the ancient rocks that make up a large part of that state.As the geologist describes how these rocks formed and brings to life the ancient worlds they created, the elder, through Native American stories, oral history, culture, and science illustrates how his people had an intimate understanding of,and respect for, these ancient rocks and the land they gave shape to.Traveling from Ely, Grand Portage, Gunflint Lake, and Isle Royale in the northern part of the state south to Jeffers, Mor¬ton, and Blue Mounds State Park the two find themselves discussing such diverse topics as the nature of science, holistic geology, mining, science and spirituality, the legacy of the furtrade, significance of the Little Spirit Tree, and much more. Ancient Earth and the First Ancestors not only tells a fascinating story that spans billions of years, but is also a wonderful chronicle of two people from different cultural and scientific heritages learning to understand, appreciate,and see the value and importance in each other’s way of viewing this land and the planet we all call home.
