Details
Rent The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
Author:
Format: Quality Paperback, Unabridged-CD
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: Sep 2008
Genre: History - Holocaust
Retail Price: $16.99
Pages: 368
Synopsis
A true story'as powerful as Schindler's List'in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.
When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw'and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen 'guests' hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants'otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes.
With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her. 8 pages of illustrations.
Reviews
Too many words about nothing relevant with what the heart of the story should have been about - Antonina's diary! I loved the parts that kept to the actual story, but found myself skipping pages and paragraphs until we got back to it! It was a great true story, but poorly told.
I read several reviews before ordering this book. Many reviewers do***ented Ackerman's numerous pointless side stories. I honestly didn't think the book could be that bad...I WAS WRONG! It was unreadable. I tried on several occasions to put my head down and get through it. I thought perhaps only the beginning of the book was plagued with long-winded and meaningless asides. After 75 or so pages, I thought to myself this can't continue but it did. The entire book is plagued with pages and pages of random side stories that don't add to the story, they detract from it. I couldn't finish it. I was very disappointed because I loved the premise of the book. But, it was much too difficult to sift through the meaningless commentary and get to the goods of the story. I got so annoyed and frustrated, I didn't care about the story anymore.