The fourth and final book of the Legend of the Animal Healer series (begun in The White Giraffe, 2007) opens with an explosion of tension. A nefarious character, Reuben James, claims he has inherited Martine and her grandmother’s beloved animal sanctuary in South Africa and plans to turn it into the White Giraffe Safari Resort. To thwart him, Martine and her friend Ben stow away on a small plane, but they are then stranded in the Namibian desert. They are rescued by a teenage Bushman whose father, an elephant whisperer, has disappeared and is mixed up in the mysterious “Ark Project.” Critical to the action-filled, plot-driven story are Martine’s ability to commune with animals (especially her white giraffe), elephant intelligence, global warming, diminishing water supply and the meaning of Bushmen cave paintings. The threads are almost head-spinningly many, but St. John dexterously weaves them together for a melodramatic finish. Fans of the first three books will be eager to read the conclusion but sad that Martine’s story is over. The author’s note makes a plea for elephant preservation and authenticates her research. (Adventure. 10-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3291-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Dial/Walden Media
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER
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Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive?
Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic.
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-67605-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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