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ANIMAL ER

Name: ANIMAL ER
Author: Vicki Croke
ISBN: 0-525-94507-5

EXTRAORDINARY STORIES OF HOPE AND HEALING FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S LEADING VETERINARY HOSPITALS

edited by Vicki Croke ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999

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Intensive care units are intensive care units, whether they deal in humans or animals: they are places of extremes that play on the emotions like stringed instruments. Boston Globe writer Croke (The Modern Ark: The History of Zoos: Past, Present, and Future, 1997), with a seasoned journalist’s appreciation of pressure-cooker situations, relates here a sizable clutch of stories from the veterinary emergency room. The Foster Hospital for Small Animals at the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine is the kind of place you want at your disposal when your animal falls ill: gathered under its roof are the latest in veterinary medical technology and experts in animal internal medicine, dentistry, ophthalmology, and oncology. Croke spent a good amount of time in the Foster emergency room, talking to vets and experiencing the near constant, barely contained frenzy. It may be an African gray parrot with a prolapsed uterus, a cockatiel that sucked a seed down its windpipe, a water dragon with a ruptured ulcer, a pet guinea pig chewed on by a pet rat. Croke has a way of writing that subtly allows readers to almost hear the vets” train of thinking as they engage in high velocity medical sleuthing: why is this dog twitching? Neurological, infectious? Did he eat a moldy meatball? Suffer a head trauma? She also has the delicate touch that manages to ventilate the fury of the ER—the rapid escalation of trouble when a swollen abdomen suddenly becomes a cardiac arrest or when the emotional upheaval goes critical and flashes with palpable grief—without becoming hyperbolic. And this is a cautionary tale. Such care comes with a price, sometimes a real high price, like $4,000 for a ventilator, and pet health insurance is no longer a joke. A breath-baiting glimpse of animals in medical peril and the very beautiful emergency room choreography of those who attend to them.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-525-94507-5

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.