Synopsis
Book by Childs, Craig
Reviews
Childs's obsessive quest to find, map, observe and get wet in the waters of America's deserts has personal roots. Born in the Sonoran Desert of West Texas, this naturalist, river guide and author of four previous books (most recently, Grand Canyon) grew up learning to revere water, that fickle, scarce, elemental sustainer of life. More than a fiercely lyrical travelogue through Arizona, Utah, the Grand Canyon and northern Mexico's cottonwood-willow forests, his hypnotic new book describes an existential adventure. Trekking for days or weeks, alone or with a companion, in search of random waterholes, rare creeks, waterfalls, springs, shrimp-filled pools and sudden, furious floods, Childs mingles personal observations with a cosmic perspective ("Most, if not all, water on this planet came from countless small comets thumping against the atmosphere... ") to make readers feel an integral part of earth's hydrologic processes. Far from being arid, his narrative ripples with adventure. He descends into a slot canyon full of 800-year-old handprints left by the Anasazi people; spots desert fish found nowhere else and believed to be holdovers from the Ice Age; survives an Arizona chubasco, a violent convective thunderstorm that rips roofs off buildings and creates myriad waterfalls. Childs's sources are diverse: conversations with archeologists, ecologists, ranchers, conservationists, geologists; Native American legends; tales of backpackers, explorers and illegal immigrants who fell victim to the desert; and a meticulous, 300-year-old desert map made by a Jesuit missionary from Spain. His highly personal odyssey combines John McPhee's gift for compressing scientific knowledge and Barry Lopez's spiritual questing. Five-city author tour.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Over the course of two years, naturalist/ adventurer Childs took a series of month-long treks on foot through each of the North American deserts in search of water. An astute observer of nature and a concise writer with a knack for storytelling, he meticulously records each significant occurrence in an attempt to understand how the absence or presence of something most of us take for granted dictates life and death in the harsh environment. Highlights include terrifying accounts of flash floods and a fascinating cave exploration, complete with wet suits, deep in the Grand Canyon. Recommended for all regional and most natural history collections, although a bibliography would have been a useful addition.
-Tim J. Markus, Evergreen State Coll. Lib., Olympia, WA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Childs, a naturalist who was born in the Sonoran Desert, has an understandable reverence for water. In this first-person account, Childs recalls a cross-country trek through the deserts of North America, searching for water holes, small springs, and creeks. He writes of hearing voices, echoes of sounds in canyons, tales told by others. Childs' account shows an obvious love of the desert as well as a profound understanding of the physical and spiritual significance of water. At one juncture, he points out the irony behind the easiest ways one can die in the desert: from thirst, which is obvious, but also from drowning in the occasionally flooded canyons. Childs encountered both dangers in his journey. "Water was the element of consequence, the root of everything out here," he writes. Vanessa Bush
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