Book Review: Zoo Story

Life in the Gargen of Captives

by Thomas French

French takes us behind the scenes at the Lowry Zoo in Tampa, Florida, and provides an intimate look into the lives of the animals and their keepers.  Along the way you meet a chimp who loves blondes, a tiger who takes no crap and 4 elephants acquired from a game preserve in Africa.

I grabbed this off the shelf at the library on a whim. I know a person through a message board that used to work at a zoo and her stories about it are interesting. Thomas French takes this behind the scenes look and makes it personal. The stories the keepers tell about 'their' animals are touching and demonstrate just how intelligent and soulful they really are. You also hear from the keepers about the struggles they face on a daily basis from disagreements between animals, to managing with limited resources, to dealing with public controversy over zoo policies and actions. An example of this comes from the zoo purchasing 4 wild elephants that were due to be culled from their herd on an African game preserve. Even after all the paperwork was finished, it still took months to bring the elephants over because of lawsuits and threats of violence from animal rights groups.

I had a hard time putting down this book (to the point where I completely forgot about a load of laundry that ended up not getting put in the dryer until 11:30 pm). French pulls you into the relationships between the animals and their keepers. With some talk about artificial insemination and mating, this isn't a book for young kids but I think teens and up will be engrossed.

BIS Rating: 5 flashlights

BIS Rating system:
1 nightlight = put it down and didn't care to pick it back up
2 nightlights = finished the book
3 nightlights = enjoyed the book but probably wouldn't re-read it
4 nightlights = had a hard time putting the book down
5 nightlights = stayed up way too late to finish instead of going to bed

Zoo Story by Thomas French on Bookshop.org.

(originally published 12 May 2011)