Within Our Grasp

Childhood Malnutrition Worldwide and the Revolution Taking Place to End It

By: Sharman Apt Russell

Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell

An important, hopeful book that looks at the urgent problem of childhood malnutrition worldwide and the revolutionary progress being made to end it.

A healthy Earth requires healthy children. Yet nearly one-fourth of the world’s children are stunted physically and mentally due to a lack of food or nutrients. These children do not die but endure a lifetime of diminished potential.

During the past 30 years, says Sharman Russell, we have seen a revolution in how we treat these sick children and in how - with a new understanding of the human body and approach to nutrition, and new ways to reach out to hungry mothers and babies - we have gone from unwittingly killing severely malnourished children to bringing them back to health through the “miracle” of ready-to-eat therapeutic food.

Intertwined with stories of scientists and nutrition experts on the front lines of finding ways to end malnutrition for good, Russell writes of her travels to Malawi, one of the poorest and least-developed countries in the world and also the site of pathbreaking, cutting-edge research into childhood malnutrition. (Eighty percent of Malawians are farmers subsisting on less than an acre of land and coping with erratic weather patterns due to global warming; 50 percent live below the poverty line; and 42 percent of Malawi’s children are affected by a lack of food or nutrients.)

As she writes of her personal exploration of new friendships and insights in a country known as “the warm heart of Africa”, Russell describes the programs that are working best to reduce childhood stunting and explores how malnutrition in children is connected to climate change, how vitamins and minerals are preventing these harmful effects, why the empowerment of women is the single most effective factor in eliminating childhood malnutrition, and what the costs of ending childhood malnutrition are.

Sharman Russell, much-admired writer of luminous prose and humane heart, whose writing has been called, “elegant” (The Economist) and “extraordinarily well-crafted, far-reaching, and heart-wrenching” (Booklist), winner of the John Burroughs Medal for distinguished natural history writing, has written an illuminating, inspiring book that makes clear the promise of what is today, gratefully, within our grasp.

©2021 Sharman Apt Russell (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Russell’s passion for citizen science and her jargon-free presentation of information relating to malnutrition will open worlds for most readers, from high school students to sociologists." (Library Journal)

“A comprehensive survey of recent trends in the fight to end childhood hunger and malnourishment.... Expansively reported and gracefully written, this cautiously optimistic account brings an important yet underreported issue to the fore.” (Publishers Weekly)

“A heartening survey of what good people are doing to help end childhood hunger.... Mixing history, nutrition science, interviews with experts, and accounts of her visits to aid organizations and projects (with a focus on Malawi), the author delivers an engrossing, modestly optimistic narrative about a sadly evergreen issue.” (Kirkus)