A loving depiction of a remarkable woman who charmed the world as much as it captivated her.
A longtime literary collaborator traces the life of a young British girl who became a voice for humanity.
Many have fallen under the spell cast by Jane Goodall. Peterson, who edited her two-volume autobiography (Reason For Hope, 1999; Beyond Innocence, 2001), paints his own glowing portrait here. The story begins in a seaside British home, where Valerie Jane was born, in 1933, cared for a menagerie of pets and spent her days reading Doctor Doolittle. She grew up, went to school and in 1955 got an invitation to spend several months in Africa. Her passion for animals got her introduced to anthropologist Louis Leakey, who envisioned a scientific study of chimpanzees living freely in the forest. Within a few years, the animal lover was on the edge of a crystal-blue lake surrounded by a lush emerald jungle. Day after day, Goodall dutifully headed into the forest, where her persistence eventually paid off. She developed a comfortable familiarity with the chimpanzees she studied, and her observations made her a household name. Peterson’s pacing is particularly good, and the jungle never lacks for drama: There are love affairs both animal and human, as well as struggle, death and, ultimately, triumph. Though Peterson tends to gloss over the unhappier parts of his subject’s life, much of her is exposed here. The reader sees Goodall as a disarming but determined advocate and activist who changed the lives of all who met her, whether human or beast. She adapted to her environment, but never forgot who she was. By the end, she is still young Valerie Jane, traveling the world to share her love of animals with the rest of humanity.
A loving depiction of a remarkable woman who charmed the world as much as it captivated her.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-395-85405-9
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
