PR for People® Reviews:
BOOKS:
Science has been making advances in the study of animal communication, but we’re really only beginning to comprehend the immensely sophisticated languages and cultures of animals from whales to bees to elephants.
And I’d bet that if you read either of the books featured here, you’ll never again be able to use “bird-brained” as a derogatory term.
“The Penguin Lessons” is a true account by debut English author Tom Michell who decades ago rescued the lone survivor in a large population of penguins that had been caught up in an oil slick. Michell had a job as a teacher in an Argentinian boarding school at the time, but he was on holiday in Uruguay. He managed to get the penguin cleaned up and fed, but when he took the bird back to a clean beach, it refused to leave his side.
The author ended up smuggling the penguin back to Argentina, where it became the beloved mascot of his school.
Michell anthropomorphizes shamelessly in this account, but he also conveys the wit and wile of a bird that managed to adapt successfully to an entirely foreign environment.
An epilogue shares the insights Michell has gleaned since then about his penguin friend.
The other book is “Tuco,” a memoir by Canadian author Brian Brett, who writes about his quarter-century relationship with an African grey parrot named Tuco. Brett has his own very interesting background, but it is Tuco’s emphatic assertion of self in a household populated by people, dogs, and cats that prompts Brett to explore the hubristic human compulsion to overestimate our own capabilities at the expense of appreciating the qualities of others.
With the help of Tuco, a bird with a large vocabulary, a knack for play, and a keen desire to engage, Brett contemplates the expansive horizons of interspecies empathy.
Barbara Lloyd McMichael is our ground reporter in South King County, Wash., and author of the syndicated book review column “The Bookmonger.” Her PR for People® Book Review is written exclusively for The Connector.
Books with remarkable bird’s eye views
By Barbara Lloyd McMichael
The Penguin Lessons
– Tom Michell
Ballantine – 240 pp - $22
Tuco
– Brian Brett
Greystone – 342 pp - $27.95