Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms
- Book Review,
by Amy Stewart
From Publishers Weekly
Even Charles Darwin found the lowly earthworm fascinating: all their tiny individual labors in tilling the soil and nourishing it with their droppings add up over time to a massive collective impact on the landscape. In this absorbing, if occasionally gross, treatise, gardening journalist Stewart (From the Ground Up) delves into their dank subterranean world, detailing their problem-solving skills, sex lives (Darwin noted their "sexual passion") and shocking ability to re-grow a whole body from a severed segment (scientists have even sutured together parts of three different earthworms into a single Frankenworm). Intriguing in their own right, earthworms stand at the fulcrum of the balance of nature. In the wrong place, they can devastate forests, but in the right place, they boost farm yields, suppress pests and plant diseases, detoxify polluted soils and process raw sewage into inoffensive fertilizer; indeed, humanity's first great civilizations may have risen on the backs of earthworms, say some of the creature's most fervent champions. Stewart writes in a charming, meditative but scientifically grounded style that is informed by her personal relationship with the worms in her compost bin. In her telling, worms become metaphors-for the English working class, for the process of scientific rumination, for the redemption of death and decay by life and fertility-and serve as a touchstone for exploring the ecological view of things. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-In this fascinating book, readers are taken on a journey underground to see the impact worms have on humans and on our planet. Referring often to Charles Darwin's The Formation ofVegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms, with Observations ofTheir Habits, Stewart educates on the vital role these creatures play in growing crops, how they can neutralize the effects of nuclear waste on soil, and their ability to regenerate new body parts. An avid gardener, the author begins with the worms crawling through her own backyard before visiting them in such destinations as an endangered redwood forest in California, a sewage-treatment plant in San Francisco, a nature preserve in Minnesota, and The Giant Worm Museum in Australia (which is shaped like a 325-foot-long worm). A book that's as enlightening as it is entertaining.-James O. Cahill, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
No less a scientist than Charles Darwin wrote one of his most popular books on how earthworms were responsible for creating the rich uppermost layer of soil, and garden columnist Stewart's equal fascination for this spineless, subterranean earth mover (and ingestor) shines through in the chatty text. She explains the differences between red worms that thrive in compost piles and worm bins, nightcrawlers that dig their deep burrows in the soil, and gray worms that live around plant roots. She examines the work of scientists as they discover new species of earthworms, looks at the role of earthworms in soil ecology, dissects the anatomy and taxonomy of the world's earthworms, and discusses the interactions of human and worm. The importance of earthworms to the organic farmer and backyard gardener is one of Stewart's key points. This quirky book will find a niche in all gardening and natural-history collections. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
From Book News, Inc.
Stewart, a gardening columnist, takes general readers on a journey underground and introduces the earthworm, looking at its impact on the ecosystem and its amazing abilities to plough soil, fight plant diseases, and absorb dangerous pollutants. She looks at the history of research on earthworms, especially the work of Charles Darwin, talks to current researchers studying worms, and looks at worms near and far, from the legendary giant Australian worm to the common earthworm in the compost bin.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Book Description
“Engrossing” (The Christian Science Monitor), “fascinating” (TimeOut New York), “delightfully nuanced” (Entertainment Weekly), “terrific” (New York Newsday), “inspiring” (Bust magazine). “You know a book is good when you actually welcome one of those howling days of wind and sleet that makes going out next to impossible” (The New York Times).
The Earth Moved has moved reviewers across the country. In witty, offbeat style, Amy Stewart takes us on a subterranean adventure and introduces us to our planet’s most important gatekeeper: the humble earthworm. It’s true that the earthworm is small, spineless, and blind, but its effect on the ecosystem is profound,moving Charles Darwin to devote his last years to studying its remarkable attributes and achievements.
With the august scientist as her inspiration, Stewart investigates the earthworm’s astonishing realm, talks to oligochaetologists who have devoted their lives to unearthing the complex web of life beneath our feet, and observes the thousands of worms in her own garden. Stewart’s “ease in gliding from worms to plants to humans will remind readers of John McPhee’s essays on canoes, oranges, the geology of America” (Providence Journal). “Stewart’s book paddles along in [Rachel] Carson’s wake. Read her book and you’ll start to see how the rhododendron bed in front of your house is a kind of Mars for frontier science” (The Boston Globe).
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