428 Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 21 No. 2 (Winter 2011) ISSN: 1546-2250 Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis Steingraber, Sandra (2011). Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press; 368 pages. $26.00. ISBN 0738213993. In Raising Elijah, Steingraber takes us directly through the trepidation—and the wonder—that many parents experience today. From climbing structures that leach arsenic to active involvement in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, Steingraber gives detailed information while at the same time providing hope and application to lived experience. It is not often that someone can make you laugh out loud when talking about neurotoxins or the importance of ecosystem services, yet she weaves together humor and care throughout her stories. She also speaks to a concern I experience on a near-daily basis: “When Elijah was 4, I made a polar bear costume with the full knowledge that the costume may outlive the species. No other generation of mothers before mine has ever borne such knowledge” (xiv, emphasis added). It was a relief to read these words, to know I wasn’t alone with my worry. Throughout the book, Steingraber takes issue with the need for parents to “serve as their own regulatory agencies” in the absence of policies that protect children and the planet from serious toxins and environmental crises. As she discusses, this approach is not only inefficient, it is also bound to fail. For children cannot live in isolated, protective bubbles, no matter how much parents want to keep them safe. Environmental issues highlight the need to become preventative in our policies. Throughout the book, Steingraber gives examples of times when the United States has applied a collaborative, multi-agency approach to toxins or hazards—such as eliminating lead from paint and gasoline, or eradicating rabies—and leads us to the conclusion that this same approach to other hazards could be effective. She guides parents toward meaningful actions at home (buying local and organic when possible, avoiding certain 429 kinds of products, gardening in the context of systems change, moving toward behaviors that require no more than human energy), but helps us see when these efforts are simply not enough and policy reform and activism is essential. It is impressive that this book, filled with as much terrifying detail as it is regarding the toxicity and decline of our environment, still remains accessible. I wondered if my enjoyment of this book was some strange morbidity on my part, or if she really just was effective in making me feel more comfortable with these very difficult topics. In the end, I think Steingraber succeeds because she writes from the heart and accesses one of the most fundamental desires of parents: to keep their children safe. “Ultimately,” she writes, “the environmental crisis is a parenting crisis. It undermines my ability to carry out two fundamental duties: to protect my children from harm and to plan for their future” (281). Dan Kahan and his colleagues (2011) ask why some people persistently disagree about topics that have scientific consensus, such as climate change and nuclear waste disposal. They assert that among the many factors associated with whether people’s perceptions of risk will be influenced by scientific evidence is their ability to identifywith the expert. Steingraber is an accomplished expert in the field of environmental toxicity, but she is also a mother who largely works from home and who has made personal and professional choices to benefit her children. To quote one of my rural community colleagues, she is “real.” And this matters, according to Kahan and colleagues, because everyday people will listen to her. There is something in her writing, her very real expectations and demands as a contemporary parent, and her deep caring for both children and the environment, that can make a bridge to many different parents. In fact, many parents have reviewed this book saying that while they typically avoid books on environmental topics, they loved Raising Elijah. I read this book with a few lenses: the lens of a parent, first and foremost, but also as someone concerned with climate change mitigation, sustainable design, environmental justice, and children- 430 nature connections. This book is relevant...