A review by susannam
Papa Goose: One Year, Seven Goslings, and the Flight of My Life by Michael Quetting

4.0

I loved this book. The author's account of his time as the imprinted parent of seven goslings is moving and never too cute. Michael Quetting has been given the mission of raising this clutch of geese as part of a research project designed to equip birds with tracking equipment that would allow taking meteorological data and other information. It's not easy: as their parent, he endures poop-covered clothing, limbs that fall asleep because he doesn't dare remove his hand or foot from their sleeping area (pandemonium and panic for the little geese if he does), and, later, tracking them down when they go astray. He is newly divorced and stressed, but in his growing relationship with the geese, he finds a rhythm and focus that is so complete and centered on just being, just existing in the day as it unfolds, that this experiment transforms him. The geese have definite personalities. Without anthropomorphising them, he still develops bonds - even love - for his charges.