This Tender Place

After the deaths of her father and father-in-law, Laurie Lawlor discovers an unlikely place for healing and transformation in a wetland in southeastern Wisconsin-a landscape of abundant and sometimes inaccessible beauty that has often been ignored, misunderstood, and threatened by human destruction. In her personal wetland journey, she examines the sky, delves underwater, and peers between sedges in all seasons and all times of day. An engating and deeply intimate record,This Tender Placeis, at its heart, a story of refuge and renewal refracted through the lens of life within wetlands-among the most productive, yet most endangered, ecosystems in the world.

Laurie Lawlor is the author of thirty-three books for children and adults, among them Addie Across the Prairie and Window on the West: The Frontier Photography of William Henry Jackson. Her books have received accolades including the Carl Sandburg Award for Children’s Literature, the Golden Kite Honor Book for Nonfiction award, and the American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults award. She teaches writing at Columbia College in Chicago.