I received an unexpected nonfiction book, Wild Lives from Knopf a couple of weeks ago and really fell in love with it. You should know that we are big fans of the Animal Planet channel around here, mostly because that sort of thing happens with a four year old, but also because there is just cool stuff on it. The latest fav is The Little Zoo that Could, a weekly show about the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo and all their struggles following the hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. One of the most fascinating parts of the show is the inside look it gives on how zoos are run. That sort of thing is also what makes Wild Lives a very cool book.
Lives is about the Bronx Zoo which was opened in 1899. The book covers the history of the zoo and it's directors and looks at how radically the human vision of captive animals has changed in the past 100 years. As it happens, the first director was William Hornaday and I have a book he wrote at the turn of the century, Hornaday's American Natural History. It's pretty much an overview of all major animal species but what's really neat is the old pictures of the animals. After reading Wild Lives, which provides so much insight into Hornaday, I pulled my old text off the shelf and found that many of the photos were taken at the Bronx Zoo. Knowing what the zoo was like in the beginning made the pictures quite poignant - there's one in Wild Lives of a snow leopard in a concrete cage with steel bars looking out at a visitor. There's no dirt, no water, no trees, nothing but concrete and steel.
No wonder so many of the animals died in the beginning.
Wild Lives is a great YA book for any kid interested in animals or zoos and it is extremely well written. Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld has made it not only a solid historical document but also a very strong statement about what zoos can do and what they must do for the good of animals and visitors alike. (Something I've also learned a great deal about from watching Little Zoo That Could.) As for William Hornaday, well both books I now have about him show that he was a bit ahead of his time - but not too far ahead. He did start a bit of a zoo transformation around the world though and he is credited with spearheading an early movement to save the American Buffalo. I guess it is too much to ask that he realize that concrete was not a good place for wild animals.
Of course the most important thing is what we do now for the animals and the environment. That's why books like Wild Lives are so important, and why I'm quite glad that Knopf sent it my way. (Look for a formal review this summer in a wicked cool column on YA nonfiction.)
