Soundings

February 1, 2022

Award-winning science writer Cunningham offers a memoir blending motherhood and climate-change research as she brings along her toddler while tracking the migration of threatened gray whales, struggling to survive as they give birth and adapt to warmer waters. Cunningham expands her account by recalling having lived with an I�upiaq family in Alaska seven years earlier and observed the changing world of Indigenous whale hunters. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

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May 15, 2022
A British climate journalist follows the gray whale migration and finds life wisdom. BBC reporter and beleaguered single mother Cunningham wanted to show her toddler son, Max, how gray whale mothers and calves venture thousands of miles from the birthing lagoons of Baja California in Mexico to the frigid feeding grounds of the Arctic Ocean. The idea was to demonstrate how the two of them could overcome all obstacles with similar fortitude. The journey, supported by a bank loan, was also a way to give her a fresh start in life. Few things went as planned, though matters culminated in a Hollywood ending. Years earlier, she had learned a great deal about subsistence whaling, the ecology of the North, and the life of the Inuit by living with an I�upiaq whaling family in Alaska. She also fell in love with one member of the extended family, a touching if slightly melodramatic thread of the story. In her debut book, Cunningham, who trained as an engineer, had hoped these experiences, coupled with a planned reunion with her adopted family, would aid in her quest. The author moves back and forth between these two time periods, recounting her sometimes-arduous physical and emotional journeys to a more confident, stable place. Cunningham is consistently forthcoming and self-aware, and she delivers an informed perspective on climate change and ecological damage with (mostly) gentle insistence. She also relates a harrowing history of Anglo attempts to homogenize and destroy traditional Inuit lifestyles--though occasionally she succumbs to an ideological rant. In her own field, she deplores the continued failures of environmental journalism to counteract the false balance and distortions served up by corporate deniers. A gorgeous, heartfelt coda brings the narrative to a close, and we can't deny our own sympathies. An absorbing account that offers urgent warnings for humankind.

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June 30, 2022
In her first book, BBC journalist Cunningham writes with urgency about following the gray whale migration from Mexico to Alaska with her toddler son at her side. In tender, often heart-wrenching prose, she recounts her passionate connection with whales alongside the aching story of past romance with a subsistence Utqiagvik whale hunter, a subsequent disastrous love affair in Britain, and then an agonizing child-custody battle. Driven to report on climate change, she finds solace in the whales' journey but also fears for their future, an emotion echoed in concern for her son and the friends she made in Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow, Alaska), where global warming makes life increasingly fragile. Cunningham's drive to better understand the whales is compelled partly by a reporter's curiosity, but even more so it is the cascade of personal details, stretching back to her childhood, that ensures that this is as much memoir as science narrative. With a light touch and artful prose, Cunningham's primary message of compassion comes through, a perspective readers are sure to respond to.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2022

Cunningham, who has worked for BBC World Service for 20 years as a presenter, editor, producer, and reporter, follows the migration of the gray whales from Baja California to Kodiak Island, along with her two-year-old son Max. Woven through their journey are memories from her past: her childhood, her early career, the birth of her child and subsequent custody battle with her abusive partner, and the happy months she spent with Inupiat people in Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska, even participating in the traditional subsistence hunt for the bowhead whale. Information about whales and climate change are intertwined in the narrative in this lyrical, and informative memoir of a woman who has known strength and happiness in the past and is determined to reclaim them through her affinity with the whales. VERDICT This memoir, with its vividly described events and locales, along with its natural history frame, will appeal to readers who enjoy narrative nonfiction or travel memoirs about women recreating themselves, natural history, Indigenous cultures, and whales. Fans of Margaret Renkl's Late Migrations or Meredith May's The Honey Bus will relish Cunningham's story.--Sue O'Brien

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