When you were 14, your parents sent you off with your teenage brother to the jungles of Africa to capture gorillas, snakes, leopards, and such, right‽ Selling to zoos live specimens of rare animals that you wrested down barehanded is a great way for teenagers to earn money for the family! Happens all the time! This book will teach children tons about animals and animal behaviour, but I'm just not sure that all it teaches is true. I have neither the time nor the patience to fact check it all, but I'm suspicious of some of the animal "facts" presented. I didn't read this book when I was a kid, and it is a book for kids, and they might enjoy it more than I did. Reading it as an adult, and as one who loves animals, I found it a frustrating mix of information and, probably, misinformation, presented in the form of a story with a weak plot that requires too much suspension of disbelief, with human characters that have no personality (beyond their superhuman ability to tame wild beasts), and animal characters that are an unintentional muddle of anthropomorphism and reality. The one thing I did like: I at least heard about some species I'd never heard of before, and was made to want to learn more.
