New Releases by Linda Lear

Kaye Mason has found the love of her life and is planning a wedding and a new life. It is a far different life from what she had expected, but she finds that the quiet country back roads of Kentucky life hold more joy than she could have anticipated. Her family is there along with newfound friends to support her during her first year of teaching, which proves to hold more problems than she could ever have imagined. All the problems of living an educator''s life seem to be hurled at her during her first year on the job. Then the reappearance of Chris, her former fiancé, raises more tension. This is a book about life and you will see yourself in one of the characters whether it is Kaye embarking on a new career and a marriage, or her parents facing all the problems of being a baby boomer, or her aging grandparents having to be supportive while facing their problems of aging. But the Mason family faces the problems together with a lot of love and respect. They show us all why supportive families are so important. You might even see yourself as a young child in some of the children Kaye must try to teach. Children appear each day in classrooms everywhere trying to learn while loaded with the problems they must face in their families. Kaye''s attachment to her students shows us that teaching is much more than preparing lesson plans.

Kaye Mason thought she had her future very carefully planned. She was graduating with a teaching certification, and was engaged to a promising young law student. Everything seemed so perfectly in place. Her famil, as always, was right there behind her supporting her one-hundred perecent. She finds out just how much she needs that support when her life doesn''t proceed as beautifully as she had it planned.

By drawing on previously unavailable sources and on interviews with those who knew her, Linda Lear gives a compelling portrait of this heroic woman, illuminating the origin of her connection with nature and of her determination to save what she loved. Lear reveals the unexpected influence of Carson''s early experience with industrial pollution and examines her life-changing encounter with the possibility of global extinction in the frightening days of the early Cold War. The book follows Carson''s efforts to become a marine biologist at a time when women were unwelcome in the academic community. It shows how her connections with nature were confirmed and strengthened through her work as a government scientist and editor, where her views about the potential dangers of synthetic chemical pesticides evolved. By the late 1950s, Carson had transformed colorless government research into three brilliant, popular books about the sea, including The Sea Around Us, and had become the most respected science writer in America. Rachel Carson challenged the culture of her time and, in the process, shaped a powerful social movement that altered the course of American history

In this remarkable biography, Linda Lear offers a new look at the extraordinary woman who gave us some of the most beloved children''s books of all time. Potter found freedom from her conventional Victorian upbringing in the countryside. Nature inspired her imagination as an artist and scientific illustrator, but The Tale of Peter Rabbit brought her fame, financial success, and the promise of happiness when she fell in love with her editor Norman Warne. After his tragic and untimely death, Potter embraced a new life as the owner of Hill Top Farm in the English Lake District and a second chance at happiness. As a visionary landowner, successful farmer and sheep-breeder, she was able to preserve the landscape that had inspired her art. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature reveals a lively, independent and passionate woman, whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.