Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocran

Told from the viewpoint of a young farm boy (a composite of people inspired by Pu Zhelong), MOTH AND WASP, SOIL AND OCEAN immerses young readers in Chinese culture, the natural history of insects, and the use of biological controls in farming. In the early 1960s, while Rachel Carson was writing and defending Silent Spring in the U.S., Pu Zhelong was teaching peasants in Mao Zedong’s Communist China to forgo pesticides and instead use parasitic wasps to control the moths that were decimating crops and contributing to China’s widespread famine. Backmatter provides context and background for this lovely, sophisticated picture book about nature, science, and Communist China.