Water for Elephants

I have always been an avid reader. As a child I would read anything, including the cereal box if there was nothing else around. I always preferred my books to tell a story that started at one point in time and moved forward. One thing I couldn't stand was books that, in my mind, "hopped around" from one time period to another.

When I grew up and began my work with children and books, I noticed that this was a widespread dislike among all the children I knew. The more I understood about child development, the more this made sense to me. Children don't pay much attention to their short pasts; they are focused on the life to come, always leaning a bit forward. It's no wonder that they prefer their stories to be linear, without strange and confusing jumps forward and back in time.

I can only speak for myself, but the older I get the more I look back at the past--hopefully gleaning lessons learned and applying them to what happens currently--so I am more tolerant of stories that "hop" from one time to another and back again. And that thought, finally, brings me to the book, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen (2006).

Actually, it's not so much that I've forgotten. It's more like I've stopped keeping track. We're past the millennium, that much I know--such a fuss and bother over nothing, all those young folks clucking with worry and buying canned food because somebody was too lazy to leave space for four digits instead of two--but that could have been last month or three years ago. And besides, what does it really matter? What's the difference between three weeks or three years or even three decades of mushy peas, tapioca, and Depends undergarments?

Circuses have always made me uneasy, and rightly so, it turns out. In Water for Elephants an old man living in a nursing home and dealing with his present infirmities remembers his past adventures as a young circus vet.

I know my children, don't get me wrong--but these are not my children. These are the children of my children, and their children, too, and maybe even theirs. Did I coo into their baby faces? Did I dandle them on my knee? I had three sons and two daughters, a houseful indeed, and none of them exactly held back. You multiply five by four and then by five again, and it's no wonder I forget how some of them fit in. It doesn't help that they take turns coming to see me, because even if I manage to commit one group to memory they may not come around again for another eight or nine months, by which time I've forgotten whatever it was I may have known.

You'll learn a lot about history and circuses and animals and cruelty and kindness when you read this book. That's really all I need to tell you, other than the quotes in this color that I have sprinkled here and there throughout this post. That, and the fact that this book kept me reading up into the early morning hours--always my test of a great read.

I open the orangutan's door and set a pan of fruits, vegetables, and nuts on the floor. As I close it, her long arm reaches through the bars. She points at an orange in another pan.

"That? You want that?"

She continues to point, blinking at me with close-set eyes. Her features are concave, her face a wide platter fringed with red hair. She's the most outrageous and beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"Here," I say, handing her the orange. "You can have it."

She takes it and sets it on the floor. Then she reaches out again. After several seconds of serious misgivings, I hold out my hand. She wraps her long fingers around it, then lets go. She sits on her haunches and peel her orange.

I stare in amazement. She was thanking me.

Hillcrest Zoo: More Animals

It's so hard to get a good picture of the white Bengal tiger

My Favorite Blogs

My favorite bone

You may have noticed my list of favorite blogs on the left side of this page. Here is a little additional information about each one. Go ahead, check them out--but beware of blog addiction!

Animals

-Bonobo Handshake: Vanessa is a writer and researcher with the Hominoid Psychology Research Group. Her blog is about her 2007 research trip to study endangered bonobos in the Congo.


Books
-A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: Liz B. writes about books, movies, and TV shows, with an emphasis on books for children and teens.

-Incurable Logophilia; reflections on a love of words, of literature, of language: A wonderful resource when you’re looking for books to read next.

-A Patchwork of Books: Amanda is a bookworm and children’s library assistant who is working toward her Master’s in Library Science. She writes about children’s and young adult literature.

Fiber Arts
-Knit Lit: Kate says “I write. I knit. I write about knitting. And I like you. I really, really like you.” Great writing, terrific ideas and photographs, and a list of links that includes I May Be Knitting a Ranchhouse, Skein Cocaine, and Fondle My Sweaters . What else do you need to know?

-Yarn Harlot; Stephanie Pearl-McPhee goes on (and on) about knitting.

Food and Recipes
-Desert Candy: Mercedes does some wonderful Middle Eastern cooking, then photographs and writes about it in this beautifully designed blog.

Life in the Southwest
-greenchilesandroses: Night Lightning Woman is a retired social worker who has lived her entire life in New Mexico and Texas.

-If the Creek Don't Rise: Lin (“I figure that fantasies should be game plans”) writes about living off the grid in the remote desert Southwest.

-La Casa de Towanda: Sharon is doing some New Mexico dreaming while planning her move from Kansas to Santa Fe. She writes lovely posts on northern New Mexico, with gorgeous photographs and a stylish layout.

-Picturing New Mexico: Lots of intriguing photos.

-Santa Fe Journal: “New Mexico, past and present, with photos and text.”


Sites That Appeal to My Librarian Self
-Love the Liberry : Amy and Marian write about the weird stuff that happens in libraries; librarians won’t be surprised, but you may be!

-Planet Esme: Children’s author (Sahara Special, etc.) Esme Raji Codell writes about children’s literature.

Impossible to Classify
-Overheard Lines: I love those snippets of conversation you hear when passing through a crowd. This eavesdropping playwright captures odd bits in that most fertile of listening posts, the San Francisco Bay Area.

-Philip Greenspun's Weblog: A posting every day, an interesting idea every three months. I’ve always loved Philip G’s photographs, now we can find out what he has to say.

-PostSecret: Anonymous handmade postcards each tell a secret never before revealed about their maker; an ongoing community art project that is now featured in several books. People slip even more postcards into the books on the shelves of bookshops and libraries.

-to-do list : A collection of lists and what they reveal (“quirks, compulsions, and habits”) about the people who make them.