Fact Friday: Raising Don: The True Story of a Spunky Baby Tapir by Georgeanne Irvine

Image: San Diego Zoo Shop

Raising Don: The True Story of a Spunky Baby Tapir by Georgeanne Irvine. 36 p. Southwestern Publishing House, October 11, 2022. 9781943198146. (Review of finished copy courtesy of Blue Slip Media.)

Happy Friday! What a day we are having hear in northern NJ weather-wise! The temperature plummeted from the mid-eighties to the low sixties last evening, then to the low fifties overnight! I hope you get out and enjoy some of it! 

Fact Friday wishes an early happy book birthday to Raising Don: the True Story of a Spunky Baby Tapir by Georgeanne Irvine. Don's birth was celebrated by the scientists and caregivers at the San Diego Zoo. He was the first Baird's tapir to be born in captivity in more than thirty years. Baird's tapirs, native to Central America, are endangered. The celebration quickly turned to concern because Luna, the tapir mom rejected her newborn and, instead of feeding and nurturing him, pushed him around her enclosure. Luckily, caretakers were there quickly to intervene and his injuries were mild.

But the baby, named Don in honor of a retired zoo veterinarian, needed milk, preferably his mother's milk. Readers will learn how the team solved that problem as well as other challenges they had trying to teach a baby tapir to be a tapir. 

Full-color photos chronicle Don's life at the zoo and will definitely elicit plenty of "Aw!" and "So cute!" commentary. The paper is sturdy enough to hold up to multiple readings. The end pages are bright yellow and feature Don's footprints in front and "Ten Things You and Your Family Can Do to Help Wildlife" on the back end. Back matter includes extra tapir fun facts, a map showing where tapirs live in the world and a list of threats to wild tapirs along with thumbnail photos of the four different kinds. 

This cheerful, accessible book will have wide appeal and is a terrific addition to any library! Look for it on October 11. 

Fact Friday: Zoo Scientists to the Rescue by Patricia Newman

Zoo Scientists to the Rescue by Patricia Newman. Photographs by Annie Crawley. 64 p. Millbrook Press/ Lerner Publishing Group, October 28, 2017. 9781512415711. (Review from finished copy courtesy of publisher.)

I reviewed this on the blog here but I featured it on the morning announcements at school today. I had scheduled it for today weeks ago but when I spied this picture at the Phoenix Zoo outside their conservation center on Sunday,

I was thrilled by the happy coincidence.

This was the announcement: It's time for Fact Friday. When Ms. Kahn was in Phoenix, Arizona for a conference last weekend, she visited the Phoenix Zoo. She spied a giant poster of a black-footed ferret outside the Conservation Center, which is a building staffed by scientists who are trying to save the black-footed ferret as well as five other animal species from extinction with breeding programs. She first learned of these kinds of zoo scientists in the book, Zoo Scientists to the Rescue by Patricia Newman. This highly readable book features three scientists who work at three different American zoos and highlights their conservation work. It's a beautifully designed book full of fascinating full-color photographs of the animals as well as the scientists at work. The book focused on the ferret conservation work being done at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, but the two zoos are partners in this conservation effort.

Review: Zoo Scientists to the Rescue by Patricia Newman

Zoo Scientists to the Rescue by Patricia Newman. Photographs by Annie Crawley. 64 p. Millbrook Press/ Lerner Publishing Group, October 28, 2017. 9781512415711. (Review from finished copy courtesy of publisher.)

I don't know about you, but I've been to a zoo or two. I remember childhood trips to the Bronx Zoo with my five siblings, entering darkened halls to peer through iron bars and wrinkling my nose against the smells. I took my own four to a variety of zoos over the years, large and far flung, small and local. Zoos have changed a lot since my childhood. Most, if not all having designed natural spaces where the animals have a bit more room than a cage, but caged, nonetheless. If I ever thought beyond the exhibits to the people behind them, my thoughts were of zoo keepers and vets with little thought given over to their education or training.

Patricia Newman introduces three scientists presently working in three American Zoos on projects to protect three species of animals as well as educating the public about them. Readers step behind the scenes with Newman to meet Meredith Bastion of the National Zoo in Washington D.C., Jeff Baughman of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, CO and Rachel Santymire of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. Each scientist receives a chapter in which Newman cogently explains about the animal, its natural habitat and the threats to them. Fact boxes with scientific information and a clear full-page, full-color photo opens each chapter as well. Readers also learn a bit about each scientist and how them came to specialize in each job. A final chapter recaps a brief history of zoos from collections to entertain, amuse or intimidate to the present emphasis on conservation. There's a practical list of eight ways any reader can work toward conservation efforts in addition to other work that scientists are doing to save wildlife.

The book is colorfully  and pleasingly designed. Each page features at least one well-captioned photograph, chart or map. Two pages of source notes, a glossary, selected bibliography, along with recommended books and websites and an index round out this must-purchase book. Display it prominently. Your fact hounds will love it and your science teachers will too. They will find multiple ways to use it in their classrooms from meeting career readiness standards to Next-gen science standards.

ETA: Here's a link to a terrific YouTube video about Zoo Scientists to the Rescue. Thank you Patricia Newman!

Non-Fiction Monday: Queenie: One elephant's story by Corinne Fenton

Illustrated by Peter Gouldthorpe. 24 p. Candlewick Press, June 11, 2013. 9780763663759. 

Whenever I recollect childhood visits to the Bronx Zoo when I was a kid in the 60s, I remember feeling sadness even though these animals were most impressive to view up close. 

Even though Horton Hatches an Egg is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Horton's travails make me terribly sad. 

When our kids were small, my husband and I took them to see The Big Apple Circus. When the elephant was trotted out, we both turned to each other with identical looks of sadness. There's just something so wrong about such a majestic beast balancing on a beach ball let alone enclosed, far away from its natural habitat.

Queenie was born in the Indian jungle sometime in the late 1800s but hunters trapped her, tied her up, hoisted her onto a steamship and sent her to a zoo in Melbourne. In 1905, when she was estimated to be nine-years-old, she was deemed old enough to carry passengers. And so, six days a week, she would wait patiently while zoo visitors climbed a stepladder and sat in a saddle called a howdah. She was a very popular attraction and folks would wait for hours for a ride. "On some days she carried more than five hundred people." 

She seemed to have special affection for one of her keepers. Children would leave treats on the fence posts. But some children would tease her and stick pins in her trunk. She was able to exact some revenge though.

The zoo made lots of money with merchandising. Queenie posters, pencils and postcards were quite popular and her birthday was celebrated every year. 

After nearly forty years of service, Queenie accidentally killed one of her zoo keepers in 1944 and the Zoo Board decided it was too unsafe for her to continue carrying passengers. Despite thousands of letters written on behalf of the elephant, she was put to sleep in 1945 due to the food shortages during the war and the high cost of feeding Queenie.

The story ends by explaining that the Melbourne Zoo as well as most zoos around the world now provides the animals in captivity habitats similar to their native habitats. 

In merely 24 pages, using gently matter-of-fact language, the author invites the reader to reflect on the issue of animals in captivity without bashing us over the head with the message. As if the story weren't sad enough, the illustrations, though gorgeous evoke the terror of her capture and delivery to the zoo, first via cart, then ship, then truck. They are realistically painted, but left unfinished around the borders giving them action a sort of spot-lit feel. In each picture, Queenie appears stoic and dignified. They just beg the reader to linger. This one is a keeper.

Non-Fiction Monday is hosted by Practically Paradise today.