Kenneth Mallory

Biography

After a twenty-four year career as Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Programs at Boston's New England Aquarium, Kenneth Mallory left in February 2004 to create his own business. Mallory provides writing, editing, and photography skills for magazines, newspapers, web pages, book publishers, and museum exhibits, especially in the field of natural history. During his employment at the New England Aquarium his work required communication to audiences of all ages, from children to adults in university settings.

Mallory has written seven and helped develop fifteen non-fiction children's books through such publishers as Simon and Schuster, Crown, Charlesbridge, Franklin Watts, Harcourt Brace, and Houghton Mifflin. Many of these books featured his photography as well as his writing. He is co-editor with Dr. Les Kaufman of an MIT Press book entitled The Last Extinction, an anthology of articles about the threat of biological mass extinction facing the world today, and was editor and photographer for a Downeast book about the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area. In an earlier part of his career at the Aquarium, Mallory was the editor of their membership magazine Aquasphere and acted as editor for special issues about the oceans of Sea Frontiers magazine and the Kansas City Zoo (Zoomin' magazine).

Mallory holds a B.A. in English literature from Harvard College where he was an English Literature and biology major. Among his many awards for writing books are Library Journal starred reviews, "Outstanding Nature Books for Children by the John Burroughs Association," "Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children" by the joint committee of the Children's Book Council and the National Science Teachers Association, and one of the best books for children by Smithsonian. Library Journal selected The Last Extinction as one of the 100 most important scientific/technical books of 1986.

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Selected Works

nonfiction children's

Adventure Beneath the Sea: Living in an Underwater Science Station

What it's like to live and work in an underwater science station

Swimming with Hammerhead Sharks

"May well inspire some children to turn to marine biology or photography as a lifelong interest."

--from School Library Journal, Starred

Nonfiction

The Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area

A beautiful and impressively informative introduction to the national park islands of Boston Harbor.

Nonfiction Science

The Last Extinction

"The Last Extinction is compelling reading. It is well written and attractively presented."

--Alexandra Dixon and Brian Bertram, Nature

The North Atlantic Right Whale: Disappearing Giants

A North Atlantic right whale breaches in the Atlantic Ocean.

The North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) is the most endangered large whale in the oceans today. Fewer than 400 are left in their breeding and feeding grounds, which extend from Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico. Survivors of hundreds of years of commercial exploitation, the right whales we see in the ocean today are barometers for the plight of whales. For over 900 years, whalers hunted these animals almost out of existence. By 1935, when they were at last given international protection, some scientists suspected that there were fewer than 100 right whales left in the North Atlantic Ocean. Most thought the right whale was doomed to extinction.

The North Atlantic Right Whale describes and illustrates an ongoing story of science and rediscovery, of survival and protection, and of research, without which we cannot hope to protect the right whale's habitat along 1,400 miles of the east coast of North America, from Nova Scotia to Florida.

This book also describes in great detail the history and current status of the species, from the reason for its name, to the way each individual can be recognized, the species' feeding and breeding habits, migration, and life in the wilderness of the Atlantic Ocean.