‘Reading this book is like sitting at a dinner table with your smartest, funniest friend. Elizabeth Preston’s writing shimmers with wit, charisma, and infectious delight, as she shows how the act of caretaking connects us to the rest of the animal kingdom.’ Ed Yong
What unites us with frogs ferrying tadpoles on their backs, beetles regurgitating food into the mouths of their larvae, or a shorebird luring a predator away from her nest by pretending her wing is broken? Creatures around the world have strategies to keep their offspring alive that are varied and surprising — and often familiar.
In this compelling and entertaining study, science journalist Elizabeth Preston explores the biology, brain circuitry, and behaviours we share with species across the animal kingdom that care for young. In the field and in the lab, readers will also meet scientists who have dedicated their lives to understanding these animals, often while juggling families of their own.
Alongside animal parents that range from lonely octopuses to warfare-waging mongooses, we’ll encounter our own species in a new way. Elizabeth Preston argues that Homo sapiens’ history of caring for children cooperatively has left a legacy in all of us, parents and non-parents alike, and is the basis for our caring human society.
About the Author :
Elizabeth Preston is a science journalist who contributes regularly to The New York Times and has written for Science, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Orion, Slate, Audubon, Discover, National Geographic and others. She is a winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award. Preston is also a humour writer whose work has appeared in outlets such as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Parents, and Real Simple and was the editor of Muse, a magazine about science and ideas for kids. She lives in Massachusetts.
Review :
‘Reading this book is like sitting at a dinner table with your smartest, funniest friend. Elizabeth Preston’s writing shimmers with wit, charisma, and infectious delight, as she shows how the act of caretaking connects us to the rest of the animal kingdom.’
‘What leads an animal to find caring for something else as rewarding as caring for itself, and at times to sacrifice its needs completely on the altar of its children? It is this that Preston, a freelance science journalist and, crucially here, mother of two, sets out to uncover ... Preston is excellent in challenging who is most capable of care, not only in other species but in ourselves ... Humans, Preston reminds us, have a tremendous capacity to care.’
‘This fascinating, compelling, and comforting book convincingly argues that whether we choose to become parents or not, we — as well as many other animals — were born pre-programmed to care for others. At a time when human overpopulation threatens all the earth’s species, it’s great to know we can harness our inborn genius for love to do more than just churn out more and more baby humans — we can extend that love to care for life in all its glorious forms.’
‘Elizabeth Preston is an engaging, brilliant, often hilarious guide to the WTF world of non-human parenting. This book is astonishing — for the breadth of Preston’s research and the eye-opening, jaw-dropping things it uncovers: dads who incubate their young in their throats and burp them out. Babies that survive by peeling and eating their mother’s skin. Gender-changing fish! Lactating male bats! The message is clear: there is no one way to be a parent. A must read for mothers (and fathers) and everyone who has one.’
‘Leave your anthropocentric illusions behind and join science writer Elizabeth Preston in her disarming practice of identifying with other parents, whether fish, fowl, insect or mammal. In return, you will be mightily entertained, and also likely to come away sharing Preston’s conviction that acts of caring by fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and caretakers of every ilk laid the groundwork for the evolution of our own peculiarly social and cooperative species, Homo sapiens.’
‘Lively and often humorous … An informative and entertaining inquiry into animal parents.’
‘Preston‘s warm and humorous debut book delightfully weaves together stories of parenthood successes and challenges across the world and has a place in any science or parenting collection.’
‘Preston offers a remarkable account of the chemical transformations that occur before, during, and after one becomes a parent … A captivating addition to any collection focused on parenting or science.’
‘Looking to creatures from burying beetles to spotted hyenas, The Creatures’ Guide to Caring explores what it means to be a good parent.’
