A review by veronicachp
Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds by Joy Adamson

2.0

This book created some mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, I love animals. I love animal stories, I love animal pictures, I love stories about animals overcoming adversity to thrive. On the other hand, this book is an account of some seriously unethical and problematic human behavior. I understand that it was a different time, when the extinction rates of large african mammals weren't so high and people generally just cared less about animals, but to read about the casual killing of animals, many of whom are now so rare, left a bad taste in my mouth. I recognize and appreciate Joy Adamson's contributions to the naturalism and biology, but at its heart this book is about the irresponsible killing of a lion mother, and then the reckless taming of one of her cubs, raised as a pet, and then booted back into the wild, and I can't condone that. It's remarkable that she was successfully reintroduced, its remarkable that she didn't eat the author or her husband, and its remarkable that the situation turned out mostly okay, but also it's definitely the exception to the rule. So this book was kind of cute, the stories about the lioness were interesting, but at the heart of it nothing in this book should be imitated, and it should instead be a sort of cautionary tale.