BY LAURA TRETHEWEY
FIVE YEARS AGO, when I started reporting for my book The Imperilled Ocean: Human Stories from a Changing Sea (Goose Lane Editions), I saw myself as a storyteller. I wasn’t supposed to write an environmental book. Of course, I knew the ocean was in trouble. Like most people, I had heard about oil spills and the mass of plastic floating in the Great Pacific garbage patch. But that didn’t feel like my story.
Growing up, I spent every summer on the East Coast, exploring tide pools, collecting seashells, and eating crab cakes. By age six, there was almost no seafood I would not eat (though I once balked at a fish eye). Crunchy salty hair, the stink of low tide, peeing on the spot where a jellyfish stung me: those memories and more became a springboard that propelled me into a lifelong relationship with the water.