RAISING DAISY ROTHSCHILD

Eight feet tall, 450 pounds, she had a 17"" tongue, starlet eyelashes, and a lethal kick. Daisy is the family's giraffe, a carrot freak who'll nibble anything orange. Whoopie. Zany adventures and painful puns accumulate here as Betty, living in a Nairobi suburb, rattles on about ""what a delightfully nutsy country Kenya is."" Too bad those Africans tend to give off bad vibes to the animals but, you know, they can't help it. Betty, on the other hand, freely offers her thumb for Daisy to suck and willingly shares a meal of leaves. Mmm. And she collects Daisy droppings for a woman who paints them and fashions necklaces--an indigenous Turd World item. Ha ha. Why Daisy Rothschild? Because she's a Jew-raffe, of course. Ha ha ha. But seriously folks, the Rothschild giraffe population has been decimated and maybe raising Daisy, and now Marlon too, will help the conservationist effort. Maybe, but Betty is sticking her neck out with these interminably cute anecdotes, and cameo appearances--the Jack Paar family, the Walter Cronkite family, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Marlon Brando--don't redeem the gushy, essentially trivial text.