Issue.15 Issue.15 | Page 34

ABOUT THE BOOK This enchanting autobiographical tale from Princess Michael of Kent recounts a girl growing up and the mind blowing bond that can exist amongst individuals and animals. Flawlessly composed by a characteristic storyteller and pressed with astonishing photographs, it is additionally an awesome picture of Africa - the cheetah rendition of Born Free - and will please perusers around the world. In the mid-1960s, Marie Christine von Reibnitz (who might later progress toward becoming HRH Princess Michael of Kent) lived with her father on his farm in Mozambique. Then just a teenager, Princess Michael was spellbound by the African scene, by the wildlife and by the general population she met. It was one of the most joyful circumstances of her life and she recounts that it was a stranded cheetah cub (called Tess) who had a gigantic influence in making it so. The relationship between the young Princess Michael and Tess, whom she hand-raised and later effectively discharged into the wild having prepared her to chase and make due alone, will touch each peruser’s heart. The occasions of that period have stayed with Princess Michael for whatever is left of her life and in A Cheetah’s Tale she reviews the tale of Tess, as well as the substances of life in Africa: from awakening amidst the night to discover her father had quite recently shot a lioness that was going to eat her to finding a savage Black Mamba nestled into the loo! Tess was the motivation for Princess Michael’s lifelong enthusiasm for cheetah protection and the epilog covers some of her work as Patron of the Endangered Species Center in South Africa and of the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia.