Upclose: Rachel Carson, by Ellen Levine, Paperback

Quiet and shy, Rachel Carson seemed to be an unlikely candidate to start a revolution, but almost single-handedly she brougt about an environmental upheaval. Her internationally best-selling book, Silent Spring, was responsible for souding the wake-up call about the poisoning of the environment. Until her book, many people thought it was possible to "control" problems in nature without paying attention to side effects. Her passionate commitment to the environment led  to the eventual founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, which to this day is charged with the safekeeping of the environment.

Up Close: Rachel Carson is one of the titles in Up Close, a riveting, all-access biography series that celebrates the leaders, artists, and legends of twentieth-century America - and the impace they had on the world.