You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
"It has been the elephants themselves, who by example have demonstrated how to cope with adversity - to mourn and grieve, as one must, but then to turn the page and focus on giving to the living. They, who have suffered so much at the hands of humans, never lose the ability to forgive, even though, being elephants, they will never be able to forget."
- Dame Daphne Sheldrick
Seeing as how the DSWT has been one of my favorite charities for some time, I thought it was about time I read the memoir of the incredible founder of the trust. I didn't think there would be much I didn't already know but there were a few surprises that aren't much talked about on their numerous websites. I was glad to learn more about David he's always been a bit of a mystery to me. They really were perfect for each other.
I was really impressed with her writing. Earlier in the book it read like a novel; dramatic love triangles and cliff hangers at the end of every chapter. While it was very engaging it was also very dense. It took a long time to get though but I enjoyed every minute.
- Dame Daphne Sheldrick
Seeing as how the DSWT has been one of my favorite charities for some time, I thought it was about time I read the memoir of the incredible founder of the trust. I didn't think there would be much I didn't already know but there were a few surprises that aren't much talked about on their numerous websites. I was glad to learn more about David he's always been a bit of a mystery to me. They really were perfect for each other.
I was really impressed with her writing. Earlier in the book it read like a novel; dramatic love triangles and cliff hangers at the end of every chapter. While it was very engaging it was also very dense. It took a long time to get though but I enjoyed every minute.
I took this book from the library expecting that it would give me the same kind of pleasure as YouTube videos of unlikely animal friends and also probably get me more riled up about hunting, which is something I'm probably already sufficiently riled up about. But I was not expecting just how much this book would offend me.
Before I start in on why this book offended me, I want to first say this about Daphne Sheldrick. She's an elderly woman, 81 at the time of this review, and it's amazing she wrote a book at such an advanced age. She obviously comes from a very different generation than I do and I cannot expect her to have taken in and accepted all the ideas about social justice that have always been easily at my fingertips (literally). She didn't go to college and learn about history or oppression; she went to secretary school and got married very young. So I cannot totally fault her for having seemingly no regard for the right of the Kenyan people to have been free from British colonial rule, nor for her seeming blindness to the fact that the colonial era caused the poaching to begin in the first place and that it is entirely her own parents' and their ilk's fault that all megafauna are being hunted to extinction. That said, I cannot just ignore it. Sheldrick's attitude in this book is often sickening.
Mrs. Sheldrick acts like the Mau-Mau uprising had no reason for having happened and she never explains about why the Kenyan people were rising up. She only talks about the fact that white settlers like herself were being killed. I'm sure it was horrifying for her. But let us imagine for a second that the British had a small minority of people who looked very different from them come into the country, take it over, and force the native population to work for them. Would anyone expect the British not to revolt and even kill the foreign usurpers of their country? Sheldrick was upset that the women at home provided the rebels with food. That's so funny to me. Did she expect the local women not to provide food for their male soldier relatives? The thing is, all the rebels had deep roots in Kenya. Their parents were not the first ones of their family there, unlike Sheldrick (her parents then brought their parents to Africa and she had two daughters there herself). The rebels were always there. It's their country. She was appalled and impressed with how the rebels knew the forests so well and could pick up on the slightest changes. Hmmm, Daphne. Maybe that's because, unlike your parents and the other British colonizers, the people of Kenya actually treated the forest like it was allowed to exist. They didn't cut the forest down to raise cattle there, then kill off any wild animal that threatened the cattle as well as any that they could sell abroad for profit.
In fact, let's think about what the British were doing in Kenya, shall we? They were ranchers. They literally cut down the forests to graze cows. They killed many wild animals in order to raise and kill even more animals. Even her husband, David Sheldrick, was friends with these ranchers, and seemed to have little problem with these white ranchers legally hunting the large local animals. In fact, it seems to me that the difference between what the Sheldricks saw as an acceptable hunt and an unacceptable one was the color of the hunters. And I can't help but want to observe that the Sheldricks were not eating processed food, but they were surely eating a lot of dairy and red meat from the local ranchers, and poor David Sheldrick died at age 58 from a heart attack. Just think: perhaps if he'd paid for fewer animals to have been killed for his plate, he could have lived to save more of the animals he actually cared about. Ultimately, the raising of domesticated animals and the destruction of wild spaces for wild animals is inextricably linked. Fail to realize this and stop paying to eat farmed animals and you fail to be doing even the minimum you could be doing to give wild animals a chance at survival.
I took a lot of notes while reading this, jotting down some things that offended me. Most of it had to do with Mrs. Sheldrick's complete inability to admit that the British had done anything wrong by being colonial rulers of Kenya. She was upset that the people like her who had turned the forest from "virgin bush" to "the finest parks" had to prove their British identity to the British after the rebellion. I suppose that's fair enough in a way. Obviously, people like her were British, not Kenyan. But, seriously, should we be thankful that the forest is a park instead of a wild space now? I'm not glad of that. She was mad when some British soldiers treated her like "the privileged elite with no right to be there" when, whoa, she'd been there two whole generations already. I'm sorry, Daphne, but that does not mean you had the right to be there. Of course, she's not exactly wrong to not have appreciated it coming from the British soldiers. It was their faults too. Their country encouraged white settlement in Kenya, and now their country was using their military to fight it out with the Kenyan people, and there they were, Bristish soldiers. She was proud of the soldiers David trained, his ability to turn "tribesmen" into the best army for "the crown" in Tsavo. I suppose I could see why she'd be proud since before that, the Kenyans who attempted to aid the settlers, in her words, "bore the brunt" of the attacks from the rebels. One could argue the settlers had a duty to make sure the innocent but not-brave-enough-to-be-rebels Kenyan people didn't just get murdered right and left for helping the colonizers. But ultimately, I don't think that is is a worthy source of pride to have trained Keyan people to fight other Kenyans for the sake of foreign invaders. It's twisted and sick.
That said, of course, I am glad that the orphanage exists. We can't change the past, and colonizing powers have already put humanity on the seemingly unstoppable path of hunting all wildlife to extinction in Africa and elsewhere. The orphanage is a drop in the bucket, and most of the orphans don't survive long into adulthood, but that doesn't mean I think their lives were not worth saving. As I predicted, I did enjoy the unlikely animal friendship stories in the book and OH MY were they plentiful, and yes, very cute and interesting. I also learned about some creatures I never knew to look up before, such as civets, dik-diks, elands, and kudus. That enriched my life, so I gave the book two stars instead of one.
Before I start in on why this book offended me, I want to first say this about Daphne Sheldrick. She's an elderly woman, 81 at the time of this review, and it's amazing she wrote a book at such an advanced age. She obviously comes from a very different generation than I do and I cannot expect her to have taken in and accepted all the ideas about social justice that have always been easily at my fingertips (literally). She didn't go to college and learn about history or oppression; she went to secretary school and got married very young. So I cannot totally fault her for having seemingly no regard for the right of the Kenyan people to have been free from British colonial rule, nor for her seeming blindness to the fact that the colonial era caused the poaching to begin in the first place and that it is entirely her own parents' and their ilk's fault that all megafauna are being hunted to extinction. That said, I cannot just ignore it. Sheldrick's attitude in this book is often sickening.
Mrs. Sheldrick acts like the Mau-Mau uprising had no reason for having happened and she never explains about why the Kenyan people were rising up. She only talks about the fact that white settlers like herself were being killed. I'm sure it was horrifying for her. But let us imagine for a second that the British had a small minority of people who looked very different from them come into the country, take it over, and force the native population to work for them. Would anyone expect the British not to revolt and even kill the foreign usurpers of their country? Sheldrick was upset that the women at home provided the rebels with food. That's so funny to me. Did she expect the local women not to provide food for their male soldier relatives? The thing is, all the rebels had deep roots in Kenya. Their parents were not the first ones of their family there, unlike Sheldrick (her parents then brought their parents to Africa and she had two daughters there herself). The rebels were always there. It's their country. She was appalled and impressed with how the rebels knew the forests so well and could pick up on the slightest changes. Hmmm, Daphne. Maybe that's because, unlike your parents and the other British colonizers, the people of Kenya actually treated the forest like it was allowed to exist. They didn't cut the forest down to raise cattle there, then kill off any wild animal that threatened the cattle as well as any that they could sell abroad for profit.
In fact, let's think about what the British were doing in Kenya, shall we? They were ranchers. They literally cut down the forests to graze cows. They killed many wild animals in order to raise and kill even more animals. Even her husband, David Sheldrick, was friends with these ranchers, and seemed to have little problem with these white ranchers legally hunting the large local animals. In fact, it seems to me that the difference between what the Sheldricks saw as an acceptable hunt and an unacceptable one was the color of the hunters. And I can't help but want to observe that the Sheldricks were not eating processed food, but they were surely eating a lot of dairy and red meat from the local ranchers, and poor David Sheldrick died at age 58 from a heart attack. Just think: perhaps if he'd paid for fewer animals to have been killed for his plate, he could have lived to save more of the animals he actually cared about. Ultimately, the raising of domesticated animals and the destruction of wild spaces for wild animals is inextricably linked. Fail to realize this and stop paying to eat farmed animals and you fail to be doing even the minimum you could be doing to give wild animals a chance at survival.
I took a lot of notes while reading this, jotting down some things that offended me. Most of it had to do with Mrs. Sheldrick's complete inability to admit that the British had done anything wrong by being colonial rulers of Kenya. She was upset that the people like her who had turned the forest from "virgin bush" to "the finest parks" had to prove their British identity to the British after the rebellion. I suppose that's fair enough in a way. Obviously, people like her were British, not Kenyan. But, seriously, should we be thankful that the forest is a park instead of a wild space now? I'm not glad of that. She was mad when some British soldiers treated her like "the privileged elite with no right to be there" when, whoa, she'd been there two whole generations already. I'm sorry, Daphne, but that does not mean you had the right to be there. Of course, she's not exactly wrong to not have appreciated it coming from the British soldiers. It was their faults too. Their country encouraged white settlement in Kenya, and now their country was using their military to fight it out with the Kenyan people, and there they were, Bristish soldiers. She was proud of the soldiers David trained, his ability to turn "tribesmen" into the best army for "the crown" in Tsavo. I suppose I could see why she'd be proud since before that, the Kenyans who attempted to aid the settlers, in her words, "bore the brunt" of the attacks from the rebels. One could argue the settlers had a duty to make sure the innocent but not-brave-enough-to-be-rebels Kenyan people didn't just get murdered right and left for helping the colonizers. But ultimately, I don't think that is is a worthy source of pride to have trained Keyan people to fight other Kenyans for the sake of foreign invaders. It's twisted and sick.
That said, of course, I am glad that the orphanage exists. We can't change the past, and colonizing powers have already put humanity on the seemingly unstoppable path of hunting all wildlife to extinction in Africa and elsewhere. The orphanage is a drop in the bucket, and most of the orphans don't survive long into adulthood, but that doesn't mean I think their lives were not worth saving. As I predicted, I did enjoy the unlikely animal friendship stories in the book and OH MY were they plentiful, and yes, very cute and interesting. I also learned about some creatures I never knew to look up before, such as civets, dik-diks, elands, and kudus. That enriched my life, so I gave the book two stars instead of one.
Despite the incredible work that the Sheldrick Trust does, I could not drag myself through this book any longer. For starters:
“But it was apparent to us now that Britain was going for what my father called an outright sellout - simply ‘one man, one vote’ - which would in essence mean black majority rule. The settler community was a small minority in the colony and it was obviously unrealistic to expect to have any representation in an independent Kenyan government.”
Though this is the most outright racist statement I came across in the two-thirds of the book I read, the colonial attitudes and racial micro-aggressions are too embarrassing to continue to read.
“But it was apparent to us now that Britain was going for what my father called an outright sellout - simply ‘one man, one vote’ - which would in essence mean black majority rule. The settler community was a small minority in the colony and it was obviously unrealistic to expect to have any representation in an independent Kenyan government.”
Though this is the most outright racist statement I came across in the two-thirds of the book I read, the colonial attitudes and racial micro-aggressions are too embarrassing to continue to read.
Although there's no doubt that Daphne Sheldrick had really fascinating life definitely worth of writing about, I can't help myself, but the book was a little bit of let-down for me. In the beginning I kind of got lost in her family tree and generally the level of writing isn't very high (numerous repetitions etc.). Despite of this, if you are looking for the book about love of nature, tough life in African wilderness and problems with taking care of national park (corruption, greediness..), then this book is easy, interesting read. For me, however, the most interesting were photos.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
I couldn't put this book down - it was great! The story was very interesting and fun to read. What an inspiring woman.
I really enjoyed this book. It brought Kenya alive for me and made me want to go on a safari to witness the beauty of the wilderness first hand.
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
I loved the subject matter of this book and found it an intriguing read of a life so different from my own. Growing up in Kenya, marrying men who helped create the national parks there, and ultimately founding an elephant orphanage makes for fascinating material in the form of Sheldrick's life. She's an incredibly courageous woman and I found her an inspiration for her ability to deal with heartbreak and continue working for her passion.
Unfortunately, I felt the author tripped up in a couple of ways. The entire book is straight narrative with long paragraphs and I found it a bit of a slog even when the reading might have been interesting. No dialogue to speak of. Also, the chronology of things sometimes jumped around as well as some appropos-of-nothing moments when some anecdote or fact would get inserted in a chapter in a way that didn't make any sense to me.
The other aspect of this book was that I felt the author, as is their right in penning an autobiography, sometimes gave a very one-sided account of events, both on a personal level and a larger national, political level. It somehow felt like the author wasn't always being honest with me or would bring up a subject and not visit it again or only briefly. Two examples I can think of off the top of my head is something as large-scale as the effects of the independence of Kenya on white settlers and something as personal as never mentioning her step-children by her second husband, but then having her step-son appear in her daughter's wedding.
Overall though, Sheldrick did an excellent job of giving a detailed overview of an amazing life and this is a story that will stick with me for a very long time, all the more for being true! If you love wildlife, have an interest in conservation, or are fascinated by Africa, you will enjoy this book!
Unfortunately, I felt the author tripped up in a couple of ways. The entire book is straight narrative with long paragraphs and I found it a bit of a slog even when the reading might have been interesting. No dialogue to speak of. Also, the chronology of things sometimes jumped around as well as some appropos-of-nothing moments when some anecdote or fact would get inserted in a chapter in a way that didn't make any sense to me.
The other aspect of this book was that I felt the author, as is their right in penning an autobiography, sometimes gave a very one-sided account of events, both on a personal level and a larger national, political level. It somehow felt like the author wasn't always being honest with me or would bring up a subject and not visit it again or only briefly. Two examples I can think of off the top of my head is something as large-scale as the effects of the independence of Kenya on white settlers and something as personal as never mentioning her step-children by her second husband, but then having her step-son appear in her daughter's wedding.
Overall though, Sheldrick did an excellent job of giving a detailed overview of an amazing life and this is a story that will stick with me for a very long time, all the more for being true! If you love wildlife, have an interest in conservation, or are fascinated by Africa, you will enjoy this book!
I adored this book. Dame Daphne is a genuinely lovely lady, who writes a book filled with love, humor, heartbreak and lots of fun facts. This book makes me want to get on a plane for Kenya right now!
The life story is told in a way that you can understand the struggles she suffered (not glamorizing the hard work that was needed to be done) and still be envious of her courage, love and all of the experiences her unique life has lead to.
Her writing is solid, and her language is vivid.
The life story is told in a way that you can understand the struggles she suffered (not glamorizing the hard work that was needed to be done) and still be envious of her courage, love and all of the experiences her unique life has lead to.
Her writing is solid, and her language is vivid.