While Glaciers Slept

"M Jackson does an intriguing job of weaving together observations about human health and frailty with global biospheric health and frailty. Her narrative brings climate change down from an abstract global scale to a very personal human scale. Particularly engaging for the non-scientist reader."
--Dr. Steve Running, Nobel Prize winner and American's foremost expert on climate change

"Climate change is many things, including an upheaval--sudden and violent--in the life of our planet. As such, it unleashes feelings and forces like those in a family when someone dies. This is a profound way of thinking about where we are right now, and what we better do about it."
--Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of Eaarth and The End of Nature

"If you've known hard grief and loss, you will understand this book. If you have hope or the wish for it, this book will shore you up. While Glaciers Slept tells a story of devotion and survival as it examines the ongoing global crisis of climate change. M Jackson is a naturalist, a teacher, and a daughter who mourns her mother's death as she discovers and explores the best choice, the only true choice ahead--a path of hope and action for ourselves and the living planet that birthed us all."
--Phil Condon, author of Montana Surround, Clay Center, and Nine Ten Again

"The literary fabric of M Jackson's While Glaciers Slept comprises two strands intricately and intimately braided together. One is her engagement in a family journey through accident and disease that inflict pain and ultimately death on her parents. The second strand is also one of inflicted pain, but at a planetary scale--the degradation of Earth itself by its human inhabitants. M moves almost effortlessly from loss of limb to loss of ice, from prosthetics to a planetary parasol. The intertwining of the two strands creates a powerful narrative of humanity, singly and in the multitudes."
--Henry Pollack, author of A World Without Ice and a winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change

"As the poet Tony Hoagland has pointed out, most of us '...walk like zombies through our burning dying world...' Not so M Jackson, who moves through the world very much aware of both the little and individually important things, such as family, while simultaneously perceiving and understanding the catastrophe that is happening all around us. In While Glaciers Slept, she links the one to the other in a flawless and brilliant way. This is superb."
--Carlos Martinez, author of The Cold Music of the Ocean and The Raw Silk of the Dark