Secrets of the Savannah

by Mark and Delia Owens

This one picks up where Eye of the Elephant left off. Most of the previous book was about their efforts to stop poaching; while they had made great strides it was not wiped out completely. So this book continues to tell about the conflicts with poachers and govenment corruption- although on a lesser scale, it did ultimately prevent them from returning to Africa. It's also more about the animals- lions, baboons and wildebeest but mostly of course the elephants. How the years of poaching had decimated the population, removing adult breeding males and females alike- and what effects that had on their social structure. Also that they saw increasing number of tuskless elephants born in the population because of the poaching. I remember just recently reading about this happening in Mozambique; the Owenses saw it in Zambia in the early nineties. This book also tells a lot about the continued programs that supported village industries and also has chapters about each of the author's childhoods. So I have mixed feelings about it. I found most of the book interesting- in some ways I actually liked it better than Eye of the Elephant. It was good to learn about the author's backgrounds- what led a farm boy from Ohio and a girl from South Georgia to spend decades of their adult lives fighting for elephants in Africa. But I can see how other readers found this book disjointed- it not only switches POV every chapter, but also veers from telling about the anti-poaching work, village life and wildlife studies in Africa to relating childhood memories. Pertinent, yes- but also a bit abrupt. Also, I found the title and jacket blurbs a bit misleading. The back cover would make you think this book is all focused on the wild animals, but it's not. And I didn't find the data they gathered about how elephant populations rebound from poaching (or natural disasters) so big as to be considered a 'secret' revealed. Title had me expecting a lot of details about the private lives of the animals, and I just didn't get that.

There's also, in hindsight, all the stuff they left out. Which I discovered upon reading more about the Owenses online- this article in particular is disturbing. I wasn't even aware that Mark had a son, you'd never know it from the book- but it appears he was heavily involved in the anti-poaching efforts too, which were far more volatile than the books let on. And that's the least of it.

Rating: 3/5                230 pages, 2006

Darkwing

by Kenneth Oppel

I don't remember where I first heard about this book- it's been on my TBR list since 2010! I'm glad I finally got hold of a copy to read, it really had me turning the pages. Darkwing is set far back in prehistory, when the dinosaurs are dying out and mammals are starting to fill the gaps in the ecosystem. The main character, Dusk, belongs to a colony of 'chiropters'- an imagined species that precluded the bats (all the other prehistoric animals in this book are based on real species). Dusk is different from his companions- he has weak, stunted hind legs and a stronger chest and forelimbs as compensation. The chiropters cannot truly fly- they glide between trees and then climb the trunks to a higher vantage point again. But Dusk- also born with near-naked wings (the chiropters call them 'sails') and larger ears- feels a strange urge to try flapping his forelimbs. He is fascinated by the birds that fly above- the upper reaches of the trees are forbidden territory, belonging to the birds. He also discovers later in the story that he can use his echolocation not only to hone in on insect prey, but to 'see' in the dark. Needless to say, Dusk does not quite fit in, and his community finds his differences at first suspicious, then later on an outright threat. Now there are more beasts stalking the land, as the dinosaur species die out- and when some felids (weasel-like precursors to cats) that have developed a new taste for flesh find their colony, the chiropters might need Dusk to help them escape to safety and find a new home.

Even though some aspects of this story felt a bit simplistic- how convenient was it that Dusk had not one unusual characteristic, but all three making him one of the first true bats- I found it really intriguing. The world of the batlike chiropters is pretty believable, and their conversations didn't upset my suspension of belief too much. The idea that the dinosaurs died out not only from sudden climate change upsetting their world- too cold for their bodies that can't regulate temperature, lack of food sources weakens them and disease becomes widespread- but also because of actions taken by the smaller, weaker mammals- was a new one. The parallel storyline from the viewpoint of a felid that moved beyond their normal died of insects, larvae and eggs to eating other animals and got exiled by his fellow felids who were horrified by his new cravings, was just as interesting to me. Eventually the paths of the chiropters and felids intersect, as Dusk's colony set out on a journey, encountering all kinds of dangers and new strange animals. Really, the conflicts piled on thick and fast near the end, but it wrapped up pretty tidy.

This book reminded me of so many others. I'm not alone comparing it to Watership Down. I couldn't help but think of Ratha's Creature- prehistoric talking animals, one has a new ability that threatens the established way of the group. And even oddly enough, Stellaluna came to mind- the bat that interacted so much with birds, struggling with self-identity. As Dusk is seeking his own way- can he suppress his desire to fly in order to fit in? why is he so different? - he's torn by loyalty to his family and deeply troubled at growing friction within his colony as he learns more about their past and the group disagrees on how to face their future when all the dangers seem overwhelming. Darkwing is shelved among juvenile fiction, but I would say it's for older, mature readers in the age range. There's some brutality, descriptions of animals attacking tearing apart and eating each other, and other frightful scenes. Also really serious stuff about loosing family members, challenging the status quo and more. Oh- and reminding me of Bannertail, there's one scene where Dusk eats a psychoactive mushroom, and another where the young bats eat tea leaves enjoying the jittery feeling (which their parents frown upon). Ha.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5            422 pages, 2007

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Beyond the Bird Feeder

habits and behavior of feeding-station birds 
when they are not at your feeder
by John V. Dennis

This is a nice enough guide to bird behavior. Unlike the subtitle claims, there's actually quite a lot in here about behaviors seen at bird feeders, but that's always a starting point to lead you to see what birds are doing elsewhere in the yard, edges of forest or city parks. The chapters cover migration patterns, what attracts birds to feeding stations (including what color catches their eye quickest- according to this author it's white), what foods different species prefer, why they would choose human-offered foods, what kind of space makes a feeder more likely to be visited, how birds use provided water, how they take dust baths or sunbathe or deliberately fly through smoke or even put ants on their skin (reasons for this unclear). How they warn each other and mob up against enemies, what types of friction or aggression you will see among common birds, how they use plants and specific habitat types for shelter and natural food sources, and avoid or suffer through bad weather. Also how they utilize houses and other building structures. Differences in bird-feeding tendencies between America and Europe. The author lives in the Eastern side of the United States, so happily a lot of his personal observations and notes on habitats and native plants used by birds were very relevant for me. It does feel a bit dated and simplistic- the author quotes Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz as making recent observations in the field- and this comment made me raise my eyebrows: Since around 1850, North America, as well as Europe, has been in the kindly grip of a warming trend. Thanks to the milder weather, a number of animals have pushed their ranges northward . . .

The illustrations are nicely done. Although not as detailed or scientific as some other books I've read on bird behavior, I think this one would be appreciated by anyone who enjoys watching birds in their yard and wonders about their interactions with each other and other various behaviors.

Rating: 3/5                  201 pages, 1981

Surf Monkeys

Choose Your Own Adventure
by Jay Leibold

I never thought I'd give a book meant to be all fun a low rating, but this one had me rolling my eyes and impatient to finish. Read it with my kid at bedtime last night, not at all interested to try another storyline on my own. Mostly because it doesn't really seem to follow the format of Choose Your Own Adventure books I recall. Usually they have a page or two setting up the premise, and then nearly every page there's a choice at the bottom. This book had many many pages of setup- and not all tidy in the beginning either- I was flipping from front to back to middle to font again, without ever having made a choice. I got annoyed and fanned through the pages looking at the lower margins- surprised to find that nearly all of them said Turn to page -- instead of If you choose-- or Do you choose-- ? It's only got nine possible endings with pages and pages of straight reading to get to them, and I bet none of the threads intersect each other. The storyline is fine considering it's aimed at kids- you're spending the summer on a California beach with a laid-back uncle who lets you do whatever you want, learn surfing and try to chum up with a surfer gang when a friend goes missing. There's possible shark attacks, friendly dolphins, suspicious men on an oil rig offshore and bad weather to be dodged while you try to find out what happened to Jorge. There's just not enough choices for the very specific genre this book is supposed to be. I was annoyed because it didn't meet my expectations, and not interested enough in a surfer detective story to try again.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5                144 pages, 1992

The Magic of the Unicorn

Choose Your Own Adventure
by Deborah Lerme Goodman

My eight-year-old has recently discovered Choose Your Own Adventure books. I hadn't read any since I was a kid myself, until now. In case you're not familiar, these books have alternate endings and threads of storyline; when you get to the bottom of each page there's an option: do you follow the path or climb the hill? or whatever- and you turn to a different page according to your choice. Some choices lead you to a happy or satisfying ending, in others you fail to succeed, or die. In this book there was one ending where you simply forgot about the mission and got distracted by something else, leading an entirely different life. Sometimes what seems like the safe or rational choice leads you to disaster, while the risky-looking option obtains the goal. It's unexpected. Which adds to the fun. Sorry for a few spoilers below.

So, the main premise here is that you live in a medieval village, there's a drought and the well has been tainted by a dead rat. An old woman tells you that a sorceress could help, or a unicorn could purify the well with its horn. The rest of the book is a search, either to find the unicorn or the sorceress and magically clean the well. I admit after doing one or two reads for fun- picking options I would imagine myself choosing in the situation- I read through the book methodically, choosing every possible variance to see where they all lead. In some, you end up tramping through the forest following different suggestions where to find the unicorn. The unicorn has inevitably lost its magic and needs your help to restore it. In other scenarios, you go searching for the sorceress in unlikely places, or follow another path to rumors of someone possessing a unicorn horn who might let you use it. In one instance, you end up stealing the horn from a wealthy duchess! In another, you end up crawling through a tunnel under a church to follow a bat- weird. There's not only a sorceress in this book, there's also possible encounters with an evil warlock, or an old witch. One thread leads you to meet a griffon, in another you encounter a dragon (not good endings). I was kind of surprised how many endings had you finding a cure for the poisoned well that didn't involve the unicorn at all, but some other magic. Some threads lead you to find the unicorn dead from its loss of magic, you didn't make it in time. But there's plenty of options where you do find the unicorn, help it out, and in gratitude it fixes the well. In one ending, the unicorn ends up your pet. My favorite was the one where you don't find the unicorn at all, but get turned into one yourself!

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5            118 pages, 1985

A Useful Dog

by Donald McCaig

This is a tiny little book, the first thing that surprised me about it. It's a collection of writings about sheepdogs- mainly border collies the author keeps and works with in Virginia but there's also one part about large white guardian dogs helping to move huge flocks in Montana. Most of the pieces- a few pages each- are about personal experiences with the dogs and the sheep, at home bringing lambs in from bad weather, facing down wily ewes, or working sheepdog trials. I liked all that. I found it interesting and thoughtful. But at least half the book diverges to talk about dog breeding, how shows have changed the animals, how they might have evolved in the first place and what DNA studies have taught us about dog origins. Which I've read about in much greater detail in other books, so I rather would have preferred more personal stories by McCaig about his own dogs. Oh well. It does make me remember that another of the author's books Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men has long been on my TBR list and I will probably like that one better.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5              80 pages, 2004

The Time in Between

by María Dueñas
translated by Daniel Hahn

I saw this at Indextrious Reader, and wondered immediately if my nearly-fifteen-year-old would like it. It has a lot of elements my teenager enjoys in books: romance, a bit of drama, intrigue and spying. This is a war story, set during the Spanish Civil War. The main character, a young seamstress-in-training named Sira, flees the turbulence in Madrid and goes to Morocco with her fianceé. Where she gets unexpectedly stranded, betrayed and burdened with a heavy debt due to someone else's reckless behavior. She turns to her sewing skills to get herself out of the mess, and it evolves into something else, leading to connections that get her involved in espionage.

I didn't quite get that far. I read about a third of it and then began skimming, loosing interest and not willing to push through six hundred-plus pages. It's a good story, with a strong female character who remakes her life several times over, but I just didn't find anything I could quite connect to. The political events all felt like flat background material and Sira's personality never really felt alive to me. I suppose it could be the fact that the text is translated, or it could be that it's just not my usual type of read, so I didn't find it exciting. I did, however, get enough of a feel for it to surmise there's nothing I'd object to my teenager reading! although I don't quite know if the author's style will be appreciated more than I could.

Borrowed from the public library.

Abandoned                   615 pages, 2009

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The Eye of the Elephant

by Delia and Mark Owens

Many many years ago I read Cry of the Kalahari- the story of this couple's studies in an untracked African desert, and I was enthralled with the descriptions of close encounters with wildlife and rough living. Now I finally read their following book, and it was- not the same. Eye of the Elephant isn't as much about wildlife behavior as it is about human behavior. Poaching. After having to leave the Kalahari, the Owenses searched for a new wilderness to make their home, hoping to study lions and other animals again. They thought they had found the perfect spot in a remote valley in Zambia. It was rugged, difficult to navigate, sparsely populated, full of lions, rhino, crocs, antelope etc. But they were puzzled at the scarcity of elephants, until they started finding piles of bones. Dismayed and -on Mark's part- enraged at seeing the elephants killed in huge numbers, the Owenses took it upon themselves to stop the poaching. They tried to encourage game patrols, to teach local villagers that wildlife was worth more alive than dead (many other animals were killed in addition to elephants- for bush meat), to give the people jobs and support them in creating cottage industries- all to save the wildlife. Really it's amazing what they went through, literally bending over backwards to turn things around. Never having time to just sit and watch the animals. Doing things that threatened their own health, driving themselves to exhaustion, many close calls with wild animal encounters and flash floods, not to mention the dangers of facing down heavily armed poachers keen on protecting their habitual livelihood. There was a lot of corruption, they faced death threats, and several times were nearly trampled by buffalo. Some of Mark's tactics against the poachers surprised me, and his flying at night sounded hair-raising. At one point Delia couldn't condone the direct approach Mark was taking and set up her own separate camp. Not surprisingly, their relationship suffered somewhat. In the end they finally accomplished a sort of peace after a lot of difficulty, hardship and frustration. What descriptions of animals there are, I found intriguing, but because of all the focus on their efforts against poaching, this book reminded me far more of The White Bushman than of anything by the Adamsons. The parts Mark wrote about flying his plane made me recall Beryl Markham.

Rating: 3/5              306 pages, 1992

An Elephant's Life

An Intimate Portrait From Africa
by Caitlin O'Connell

The author spent some twenty years doing research in Etosha National Park in Nambia, and wrote this book about the social lives of elephants. It's really a grand photo essay. The observations were all done from a research station set up next to a water hole, and while some of the book is about how that was conducted, their daily activities and hardships living out in the bush, most of it is about the elephants. Their interactions, tender and threatening gestures, friendships and enmities, shifting relationships as they age and elephants move in and out of the herd. New births, mother's guidance, the matriarch protecting the group from other elephants that encroach on the water rights (as elephants perceive them). Also against predators- lions hanging around. Mostly, though, the focus is on the male elephants- how the young adult males start to show their independence, until their behavior becomes obnoxious and the females push them out of the herd. How they form alliances with other young males, or shadow adult bulls. How the bulls compete for water and access to females- but also surprisingly spend a lot of time just in each other's company or supporting one another. The final chapter details the fall of one older bull from power, when he sustained an injury that weakened him. It was all pretty interesting because I never read so much about the social interactions of male elephants before, always assumed them to be loners except when it came time to mate. I think the author put a lot of focus on the males to change these assumptions.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5               196 pages, 2012

Arctic Tale

Narration by Linda Woolverton, Mose Richards and Kristin Grove
Adapted by Donnali Fifield

Another book of striking photographs and brief paragraphs. I haven't seen the film this is based on, but it doesn't matter, it was a nice read by itself. It follows the lives of two predators in the Arctic- polar bear and walrus- from birth to independence. Shows a bit of family life, learning skills, social interactions, hunting attempts and so on. Mostly pictures, and the majority of those are good quality. There's images of other animals that live in the same region too, as their lives cross paths- arctic foxes, harp seals, caribou and various seabirds. Theme is on the struggle for survival- especially in the face of warming oceans which shrink the sea ice these animals depend on- the walrus as a secure resting spot, the polar bear as it gives access to food sources. I especially enjoyed reading the final chapter, where the filmmakers and photographers described how much work it took for this production, what they learned from it, their impressions and experiences of the arctic. Now I ought to get the DVD and watch it with my kids.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5                 160 pages, 2007

The Mating Lives of Birds

by James Parry

Seems that this book has also been printed with a different title- The Mating Game: Bird Courtship and Display, which I find more descriptive. It's very accessible and general- an easy enough read, with a wide variety of examples from many species in different bird families. It's all about the interesting and curious behavior many birds use when trying to impress a mate or ward off rivals, as well as the beautiful plumage they grow during the breeding season. There's sections on how birds find and select mates, their often-stunning methods of showing off to each other, the varied types of relationships they form and maintain, territory defense and colonial living, nest building (presented in order from the simplest- a dry scrap on bare ground- to the most complex woven nests or mud-daubed structures), and how the eggs and young are cared for. Each section really only has a few pages of text, more space being taken up by large, striking photographs. Most of the birds mentioned in the text are shown in the pictures, which I definitely appreciated. Very nice book showing how birds manage one of the most intense events in their lives- finding partners and raising a family. Sample of the pictures- vivid throat feathers on a hummingbird:

Adult cuckoo:

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5             160 pages, 2012

The Genius of Birds

by Jennifer Ackerman

Birds are smart. They can be resourceful, curious, inventive and opportunistic. It is true that many show limited responses to novel situations, or avoid them altogether- living in a narrow band of specific habitat where their needs are met, following set behavior patterns. But other birds can vary widely in their habitat use, discovering new food sources, solving problems and inventing new ways of doing things. Like the blue tits in Britian that learned to skim cream off milk bottles on porches- and the behavior spread as birds learned it from each other. This book looks into things like exactly how birds learn to do things like that- what parts of the brain are used, what kinds of behaviors do they copy from each other. Which species of birds learn by mimicry, or by being actively coached (some parent birds give their offspring practice and guidance in learning certain skills). It discusses a ton of other stuff too- the complexity and variety of birdsong- in some cases akin to language. The ability of some birds to navigate hundreds of complex social relationships in colonies. How they can steal, cheat, deceive and conversely, console one another. How they can remember thousands of locations where they hid food. Recent findings that poke holes in many long-held notions about birds: many monogamous pairs (including swans) actually perform myriad "extra-pair copulations on the side" (and speculations on why they do this). How they perform astonishing feats of navigation- the details of this are still not understood. From the angle of the sun, position of the stars, magnetic field of the earth, visual landmarks and even olfactory memory- it appears to be a combination of it all. The intricacies of nest-building. The artistry of the bower birds. And the astonishing ability of some birds to make tools for specific uses- the New Caledonian crow will even save a tool it has made, and carry it around to use again later. The book doesn't just describe observed behavior about all these things, but specific studies done to investigate what types of skills birds could learn and how they managed to solve problems. Points out that scientists have discovered that birds' brains are organized very similarly to humans', and in some cases their intelligence level is on par with that of great apes. Pretty amazing.

Except that I've read a lot of it before: see Bird Brain by Nathan Emery. And it took me a while to get through this one because I found the writing a bit uneven. The introduction, in particular, is very redundant and it almost put me off reading the rest of the book. I was also sometimes dismayed to read how the experiments were done. Some simply presented wild birds -caught and kept in aviaries for a short time- with problems to solve and then released them to see what they did back in their natural environment, with their new skill. Fascinating. Others used birds in a lab, studying what parts of the brain lit up when certain behaviors or emotions were active - not hard to imagine what that really entailed. More disturbing was when researchers trapped birds during migration, cut a nerve that communicated a certain sense or organ with the brain, and then released them to see if they could still navigate. I guess that's a way to see what the bird relies on most to find its way, but I couldn't help feeling bad for all those individual birds lost and wandering because of their inflicted disability. They never found their way home.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5               340 pages, 2016

Fresh Eggs

by Rob Levandoski

Kind of a modern fable. It's fiction, with all the horrors of factory farming, and the tenderness of a young girl's heart. The main characters in the story are father and daughter- Calvin Cassowary has an abrupt career change when his father suddenly dies, leaving the family farm in sad state. Calvin doesn't want to sell the farm to developers to be turned into housing, as some of his neighbors have done. But he can't keep it running the way his forefathers did, there's no profit. Instead of growing multiple crops and raising a variety of animals, he signs a contract with a huge corporation that produces eggs, and builds layer sheds on his land. His young wife keeps a small flock of hens in the yard and sells eggs to the local customers, while the confined company hens - literally a million of them- keep the farm afloat. Until they don't . . . Meanwhile, Calvin's daughter Rhea loves tending her mother's chickens, but is horrified by what she sees in the layer sheds. As her father starts to sink under growing debt, falling egg prices and strict company rules that never allow him to get ahead, Rhea becomes more involved with the chickens and more determined to do something about those million layer hens locked up in the sheds, forced to produce for a mere eighteen months before they are turned into pet food . . . Calvin's wife passes away, and Rhea carries on her memory with the small backyard flock, and then something very strange happens which draws the attention of local media. There's lawsuits and drama galore. I can't say what or it would spoil the story for any of you. It's disturbing and intriguing and by the way it all has a very tidy ending. Unrealistic maybe, but nice- and why not, for such a quirky story.

The tone of the book kind of reminds me of Jane Smiley. There's a slight mix of fantasy and reality akin to Tender Morsels (although this book doesn't  have such heavy topics). There's a part that takes place at the county fair, reminding me a lot of Geek Love. It's also a story of young first love, and a lot of it is about how the daughter's relationship with her father changes over the years, and how she finds acceptance with who she is.

Side note- one interesting detail is that Calvin's second wife suffers from multiple allergies and sensitivity to chemicals in the environment. Basically everything makes her sneeze or itch or both and she's always miserable except when having sex- it's the only time when her allergic symptoms abate. Oddly, there was another character in the story who had an unusual physical affliction, which only started to go away after the loss of virginity. I keep trying to figure out what the author meant by this, if there's some symbolism to it.

Found this one at a used book sale.

Rating: 3/5                  252 pages, 2002

Winging It

a Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me
by Jenny Gardiner

Story of family life with an african grey parrot. When the author was newly married, she and her husband had always wanted a parrot. They couldn't afford a captive-bred bird, and felt dubious about acquiring a wild-caught one. So they got a dog. Who turned out to have tons of health problems- allergic to everything, including dog food. The family was advised to put the miserable labrador to sleep, but they insisting on keeping their family pet, in spite of its chronic health problems. Then a relative came home from a stay overseas and brought them a parrot. A frightened, unhappy, feather-plucking vicious young parrot they named Graycie. They tried to give Graycie the best care, but unfortunately whenever things happened in the family (leaky roof during snowstorms, multiple kids with chicken pox at the same time, frightening episode of seizures complicated by their daughter's adverse reactions to medication when she was older, etc) the parrot got ignored. In boredom it self-mutilated and destroyed whatever it could reach- including pulling tiles off the wall. Not to say they didn't speak kindly to it, provide it with veterinary care, research proper diet, etc- and recorded plenty of amusing moments, the kids' delight in the bird's antics, amusing incidents when Graycie repeated phrases in appropriate context- scolding the dog or the children, for example. But I have to say overwhelmingly it sounded like keeping a parrot is a ton of work and trouble, constant cleaning of messes, and not very encouraging when the bird never warms to you and is always ready to attack. It is admirable that the family never gave up on Graycie, nor on any of their other pets that turned out to be troublesome (after the hyperallergic lab, they had a dog with a penchant for biting). The author relates how caring for Graycie taxed her patience and sanity, but also taught her kids responsibility to other living things, a firm commitment to the creatures we take into our lives. It all cements my impression that parrots don't really make good pets. Similar read, but with a parrot that actually liked its owner: The Parrot Who Owns Me. Similar read in tone, but about a dog. In the end, I found this one disappointing. While the stories about the family's trials and challenges made me sympathize with them, I wish there had actually been more page space given to the bird, except that I was feeling bad for the bird, so maybe not.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5                240 pages, 2010

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The Wild Robot Escapes

by Peter Brown

Sequel to The Wild Robot. My kid brought this one home from school, and we were reading it together as a bedtime story. But then of course she read ahead, finished first, and I had to catch up later. Sorry, there are a few spoilers below.

Picking up straight where the previous book left off, Roz the robot has been refurbished and sent to work on a farm. The farm is mostly run by technology- this farmer rarely leaves his house- but has fallen into a lot of disrepair. Roz is there to fix it all up. But she's no ordinary robot, she remembers acutely her old life on the wild island, and misses the animals especially her adopted son the goose. Roz starts having conversations with the dairy cows on the farm, but can't let any humans know of her ability to talk to animals- she'll be seen as defective and sent back to the factory. She comes to befriend the farmer's children, who help her make a plan to run away, and return home to her island. When the moment comes- after a lot of difficulty- Roz is suddenly torn- having grown attached to the children, the cows, the farm itself. Ahead of her is a long, dangerous journey. Migrating geese find her and spread the word, so eventually she comes in contact with her 'son' again and they travel together. They have to face down wolves, a ram that randomly bashes anyone with its horns, human hunters and terrible storms. They see other farms, some operating with greater efficiency than the one Roz worked at, but at greater suffering to the animals- this isn't elaborated on, it's kind of mentioned in passing. As is the presence of an abandoned mine, the idea of humans living on a space station, working conditions for other robots, and so on. Lots of big issues, gently skirted by.

Eventually Roz and Brightbill the goose have to travel through cities, where the robot tries to blend in but eventually attracts attention and has to run for her life again. Flocks of city pigeons mobilize to help her, a rat leads her through the sewers, but she ends up back at the factory anyway- where she meets the very scientist who made her. The doctor is adamant that Roz must be destroyed- the public fears her aberrant behavior- but first she insists on having a few long talks with Roz, and finds the robot's way of thinking fascinating. Will Roz be melted down into parts? or will she finally find a way back home to her island. There, I left you something to find out!

Borrowed from the school library.

Rating: 3/5          278 pages, 2018

Zoo Story

Life in the Garden of Captives
by Thomas French

Picked up another book from my shelves, on the same subject matter. I was a bit surprised how very similar they were. In both books, the same animals get a lot of focus- tigers and elephants. This one also has a lot about a certain chimpanzee who had lived in the zoo a very long time, seen many changes- but started his life raised in a private home, so he had some confusion including a fixation on human females instead of his own species. The shuffling of hierarchy among the half dozen chimps at the zoo as some aged and younger ones came in, was pretty fascinating. The tiger- beautiful and always fierce- even to the older, larger male tigers they bought in hoping to be her mate- met a tragic end after getting out of her enclosure one day. Main thread going through the book was about the elephants- brought over from Swaziland to spare them from being killed in a cull (the area they lived in had too many elephants, no room to roam, and they were destroying the habitat, running out of food. This felt very familiar to me- I think I read about the same elephants in Animal Wise). The zoo's acquisition of these elephants caused a huge outcry from animal welfare groups. There was also a lot of conflict among the zoo staff- some wanted direct contact methods used with the animals, others pushed for new methods that kept the keepers and staff safer from the elephants. This book, like the other, also had a lot about how inner operations and politics, but it felt more focused. Quite a lot about the zoo director's decisions and actions, how it impacted the workers, the animals, even how his wife felt about things.

Some other animals featured in the book are the manatees which the zoo rehabilitates and releases into the wild, patas monkeys that escape off their island and run around the outskirts of the city for weeks, and endangered frogs being bred in captivity. It's all based on six years of research- four of which the reporter spent in visiting the zoo and going behind-the-scenes. The appendix has detailed notes about sources for all the described scenes and conversations, very thorough. Most of the time I appreciated the author's attempts to imagine what the animals were thinking, feeling or perceiving in certain moments, but I found his constant comparison of human behavior to chimpanzees (especially in terms of males seeking high status) annoying- it just started to get old. Although he made a good point to reiterate what zoo staff told him about how they help endangered species and work for the good of the animals, a lot of what's in this book made me feel dubious about zoos for the first time- usually I enjoy visiting them. Now I'm not so sure.

Rating: 3/5                 288 pages, 2010

more opinions:
Bibliophile by the Sea
who else has read it?

The Peaceable Kingdom

a Year in the Life of America's Oldest Zoo
by John Sedgwick

A reporter spent a year at the Philadelphia Zoo and then wrote this book about it. He talks just as much about the keepers, administrators, construction, repairs, management problems and so on as he does about the animals- getting a lot of behind-the-scenes look at how the zoo operates. For me, these details about how the people and politics in running the zoo weren't nearly as interesting as the animals- so I ended up skimming quite a lot, especially in the beginning. I even skipped an entire chapter (two pages) that was all about the budget. That, and the fact that much of the humor missed the mark with me, is why this book rated low for me. On the other hand, I did enjoy reading about all the wildlife- attempts to breed a rhino, raising baby animals rejected by their parents- kangaroo, binturong, marmoset- veterinary procedures, moving gorillas from old bare cages into new outdoor habitats, tricky work with dangerously strong elephants, bringing in a new zebra to replace one that had died, making a stubborn camel move into its shelter from the winter weather (it didn't want to go indoors), watching interactions among the group of wolves. There was a koala on loan that was a star attraction for weeks- even though it slept ninety percent of the time on exhibit. Some of the descriptions are very brief, others- the wolves, elephants, rhino and gorilla in particular- are longer or revisited through the book. You might want to know there's a several-page very detailed account of the rhinocerouses mating. The author seems to take delight in nonchalantly describing the animals' sexual endeavors, including the tiger, the gorilla, and a tortoise (who kept mounting boulders). He also keeps mentioning how dangerous certain animals are, or how stupid others, without much attempt to see beyond this sensational or disparaging attitude. This was the era when zoos were just starting to recognize the importance of conservation and captive breeding as a means to preserve species, rather than just have more lion cubs to show off to the public. There's a bit of history and side stories about collectors (but with none of Durrell's charm) which unfortunately only detracted from the main narrative for me. It's certainly a piece of its time, an honest look at what a zoo was like in the 1980's. Rather sad how ineffective most of the veterinary attempts were- there seems to be more mention of animals getting ill or dying than of new births and successful treatments- but maybe they just stood out to me more.

Rating: 2/5                 299 pages, 1988

twelve

Yesterday my blog turned over another year

Finding My Distance

A Year in the Life of a Three-Day Event Rider
by Julia Wendell

Daily journal of a horsewoman, she and her husband owned a farm in Maryland. There are racehorses, and retired racehorses turned to show jumping or breeding, but her main focus is three-day eventing which entails dressage, steeplechase and show jumping. Seems a very demanding sport for one horse to learn but I gather that's the point- it requires skill, finesse, endurance and guts. Some of the jumps are set up specifically to test how brave a horse (and rider) can be. The author tells about her daily challenges and struggles, not only with the horses, their training and constant upkeep- especially dealing with injuries, wow the legs seem to need a lot of attention- but also with her family, her grown children (one newly off to college and the other travelling India), her poetry-readings (she includes some of the poems in this book), and just life in general. Coming to the sport late, in middle age, she relates the learning curve, working with different instructors, trying to build up her confidence, and all the hard choices that come with keeping and showing horses. It's always one thing after another and there's lots of discouragement but her passion for it blazes through. It's rather strange to read a book written so intimately about a world so different from my own- and yet with striking familiarity- I live the next state over and know the locality. I've even driven on the road past Morven Park- but without any reason to ever go in. I like reading about it for the glimpse of it all- but I bet this book would really be loved by anyone in the horse world. It feels so honest and real.

I found there's a sequel, Come to the X, which I'd also like to read- particularly I want to know what happened with several of the author's horses and how her progression went in the sport. You can read a sample of her writing style here.

Rating: 3/5              399 pages, 2009

Indian Saddle-Up

by Glenn Balch

Two young Native Americans from the Comanche tribe are out hunting pronghorn and bison when surprised by enemies from the Ute tribe. As one youth runs back to warn their tribe, the other decoys the enemy. When he finally evades the Utes and makes it back to camp, all his people are gone except for an elderly man they call Old Man Crazy, because he speaks of things no one believes- people with white skin who wear armor and travel on the backs of animals. At this time none of the Comanches had ever seen a white man and horses were unknown to them. So the youth and the crazy old man travel alone together, and they come across a small band of horses, (escaped from the Spanish Conquistadors). At first they find the strange animals frightening, then are eager to learn how to possess and ride the horses themselves, so they can take these new valuable animals back to the tribe. It isn't easy, particularly as the natives don't have any idea how to approach or control the horses, but they are smart in the ways of wild animals, and quickly learn by observing how different horses are from wild game (being domesticated, and already accustomed to humans). The younger Comanche is particular invested in the attempt to use horses because he has a lame foot which always slowed him down; this will give him an advantage among his people. But he has to face a lot of unexpected challenges, and looses the guidance of the old man too, ending up on his own to figure out how to ride the horse and then find his own people again.

This was a really well-told story, with good descriptions, realistic animal behaviors, engaging writing style and an interesting plot that surprised me a few times. I suppose its quality really stood out to me following close on a just-okay book, but it reminded me why Glenn Balch is still one of my favorite authors.

Rating: 4/5            210 pages, 1953