I really enjoyed this book and the photos; I learned a lot. (It should be required reading.) It's well-researched, with notes, a bibliography, and an index. Not only did it flesh out the history, the characters were interesting--the people and the animals. (I loved the badger and the carnivorous rabbit.) Then there were the Nazis; we have to remember them as well...

Btw, not long after reading it, I came across Rick Steves' Europe: Poland on PBS. He covers the WWII history with photos and film footage and visits to the Holocaust museums, along with current events and people. He visited Warsaw, Krakow, and Auschwitz. Warsaw is full of Soviet-built blocky apartment buildings--a memorial to their occupation.

This book was recommended to me by Suzi Hannah, Jack's wife. It is excellent. It makes history come alive, even the horrible history surrounding the holocaust. The story is obviously told with as much authenticity as possible. Any detail not known precisely is worded so you know which parts are true and which parts are only probably true. I recommend it strongly.

My husband and I had the opportunity to meet Diane Ackerman when she did a reading in our city. We both came out with the desire to read her book "The Zookeeper's Wife," and were rewarded greatly. The story of this people who hid Jews in their zoo to protect their lives during WWII is heartwarming and true. It shows us the need to have the courage to stand for what is right no matter what. It was well worth our time and much more.
Anna del C.
Author of "The Elf and the Princess"
The Elf and The Princess: The Silent Warrior Trilogy - Book One (The Silent Warrior Trilogy)

I am very interested in World War Two and the Holocaust so when I heard about this book I thought it would make an interesting read for a book club I belong too. I started it and only got to chapter four before I had to stop completely. I found the story to be plodding, and slow. The author also was very descriptive, which also took away from the story.

If you are looking for a good book about the Holocaust this book is not for you.

Readers will learn a lot about conditions in warsaw during World War II and the heroic actions of ordinary Cchristians in helping the Jews escape the ghetto and hide out in various safe houses. i learned a lot about the Polish underground and the Resistance.
Ackerman is a naturalist and she includes a subplot about the nazis' interest in breeding prototype horses . She also describes the seasons beautifully and animals play a nice role in the story. She excels in description.

This is an amazing story, but it will put you to sleep. In the hands of a better writer, this would be award winning.

I read every book that I can about the Holocaust and the survival of the human spirit. People helping people. I have read 100++ books and this is the first that told of what happened to anamils during the war.

This is the first positive thing I have ever read that the Nazis contributed to. The final outcome of some species has a positive for us today.

The thoughts of the zookeeper's wife and her unique ability to work with animals with captivate you right away. This was a very brave Christian Polish family who suffered and risked thier lives for Jewish families all the while caring for anumals too.

One of the most interesting Holocaust stories I have read. It for me was not a fast read has it is written on a high level of language. I learned a lot of new words as I used the dictonary.

Highly recommed this book. You will come away with new information even if you like me are well read about the holocaust.

As an amateur scholar of Yiddishkeit, my readings have included several novels and biographies set in the Warsaw Ghetto, so I was familiar with the horrific overcrowding and dehumanizing conditions that Warsaw's Jews were subjected to before the Ghetto was razed in 1943 and the remaining survivors were sent to concentration camps. Many of my maternal relatives immigrated from Poland in the early 1900s, and were fortunate to have escaped living through the wars. For the millions trapped in Poland, life turned into a living hell for Jews and Gentiles alike under the Nazi occupation of Warsaw.

In Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife, she chronicles the real-life heroism of Antonina and Jan Zabinsk, the zookeepers in charge of the once-prestigious Warsaw Zoo that was heavily damaged in the initial bombing in 1939, who turned to rescuing hundreds of Jews and Polish Underground families attempting to flee for safety.

Antonina has a rare gift, a deep empathy with humans and animals alike that allows her to sense deeply what they are thinking and instinctively understand how to calm them (which saves her life more than once when facing Nazis). Jan was also an active member in the Underground, using his official documents as a pass to smuggle Jews out of the Ghetto, as well as perform acts of sabotage against the Nazis. They face the unknown in their different ways, Antonina attempting to fill the villa with activity, music, and the few animals that she brings indoors (many of the larger zoo animals were killed in bombings, slaughtered by Nazis for sport, or transported to German zoos).

Ackerman's prose hauntingly captures the destruction inflicted by the Nazi bombings, the daily humiliations and indignities that war inflicts on civilian populations, particularly on those trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. At times, the novel is nearly bogged down by the overenthusiastic descriptions, such as a segment on beetles that goes on for several pages, but these scenic detours serve to illuminate the thinking behind several pivotal characters.

There are certainly important concepts glossed over, such as the Hasidic viewpoint of the Shoah, and at times the quotes taken from Antonina's diary and other documents blur between fiction and recounting based on the sparse endnotes, but the Zookeeper's Wife is a glowing testament to the courage of two unconventional Poles whose bravery saved over 300 lives during one of the darkest periods in modern history.

The story itself is amazing but the way it was written is so exceptional. You can see, you can feel, you can smell when you read descriptions of even the simplest things. The author did lots of research before writing this book and therefore you can learn lot's of interesting facts and details.

I haven't finished the book yet but it's hard to put down. sometimes it gets a bit long in detail. It's the only book on the holocaust that includes animals - making it so special

Oh my goodness, what a wonderful story. Set in the period leading up to and during WWII in Warsaw, Poland, this historical novel brings out the true meaning of human kindness and cruelty, human hope and despair. It is beautifully written and moves with incredible swiftness towards an inevitable conclusion. Enjoy!

The story in this book is fascinating. It provides the reader with how a real family reacted in WWII.

The issue with the book is there are just too many words. The author seems so interested in writing interestingly that she goes on to describe things in a paragraph that could have taken a sentence or less. I found the beginning of the book particularly difficult to get through. I would have preferred this story told in approximately half the pages.

Ackerman's account was truly moving, but the novel was not crafted carefully. A sloppy chronology coupled with unanswered questions didn't do justice to the amount of research and heart she obviously put into the book.

Much of this story reads like a novel. It is compelling and fascinating from the first page. And, it tells a portion of the Holocaust story that I had never heard. The relationship between the Zoo Keeper, his wife and child, their "guests" and the animals in inspiring!

Although this book was not bad by all means, I found it a little slow and forgettable. The Holocaust has always interested me and I thought this book was a great match for my tastes. I was disappointed, as the story was hard to follow at times. There were parts where I was thoroughly involved, and others where I found my mind wandering off about different matters. The Zookeeper's Wife is a factual story about a woman whose family risked everything during WWII to hide those effected and in danger. The cite of their operation was the famous Warsaw Zoo, the zoo they worked so hard to build and maintain for decades... Even while watching their beloved animals taken away, killed by soldiers for rifle practice, and scared to death, the Zabinskis never ceased in helping those in need, putting their dreams on hold. Again, this was not a bad book, but it is not on the top of my list for recommendations. See for yourself, you may enjoy it...

The book starts-out a bit slow, but in all fairness it is setting the scene which is in stark contrast to what is to follow. The author sets the stage for the coming of World War II and the invasion of Poland. You get a real glance at what Polish life was like before, during and after the war and how this remarkable family saved several hundred Jews from sure death.

You are brought into the daily life of the zookeeper's and shows you what a remarkable woman she was. I could hardly put the book down until I had finished it. I learned things about Poland that I had not known previously. Sure I knew about the Warsaw Ghetto and the concentration camps, but I had not known things like Poland had an ancient forrest filled with now extinct animals which Nazi's tried to revive, such as the tarpan, by reversing breeding using their relatives, the Prywalski horse.

I highly recommend this book!

It will come as no surprise to Ackerman fans that there are sentences in this book that are so beautiful they made me cry.

There are 56 words in the first sentence. None of them entice this reader to the second sentence. I've tried several times (different moods, different ambience, different beverage at the side table) and literally can't get past the first page. They were in a bed crafted of birch, the same wood used to make tongue depressors and canoes? No. No, no.

The one star is because the cover art is lovely.

Recommended by a friend who thought title and book cover was interesting but had not read. I ordered, thinking fiction. To give some idea of my perspective, I was born in NH in 1939; my father was in the Army and I was married to a Jewish man. This story was absolutely overwhelming to me; had no idea what these people went through (thought I did), would have been so proud to have been part of their and the animals lives! It should be required reading.

I was very disappointed in this book. Most of the reviews I read were very positive though and I can't figure out why. It was so hard to follow all the numerous people in the book. It almost felt like a job trying to keep everybody straight since the author really wasn't able to give them a dimensional feel.
Let me cut to the chase though. The biggest disappointment of all is this could of been such a phenomal read but the author just did not give it the justice it so well deserved. Maybe whoever gets the movie rights will come through with this amazing story.

Ackerman tells the Schindler-like story of Jan Zabinski, the director
of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who helped 300 Jews and
Polish resisters at their zoo. Ackerman also discusses the Warsaw
ghetto uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Even
though she delves a bit heavily into animal and zoo details, the
memorable characters also shine through. I'm using this book in
my research on Warsaw. This is a long-forgotten episode, and the
contrast between zookeepers and Nazis is painful.
Steve Wiggins, author of "Streets of Warsaw."
Streets of Warsaw: A Novel of the Polish Resistance in World War II

...who will know. The on-and-on description of the tiniest of details (much of it in needless places) seemed an attempt to prove the book was well researched. Well. It probably was. But a focus on meaningless details in odd places prevented the passion that the very nature of the story could have, and should have, conveyed from coming to life.

I can not recommend this book. The author turns sentences into mundane lists that are boring beyond belief. It's like she was trying to stretch the novel into the number of pages required by her publisher. With all the good reviews, I expected a more interesting book.

I didn't quite know what to expect from this book, but was so thoroughly delighted by the wonderful writing ability of Diane Ackerman. Her cast of characters came alive and peopled her book from the very beginning. We have read so many stories of the Holocaust, but this story brings it down to such a personal level, a wonderful zoo in Poland, a young family trying to keep their lives and the lives of their friends safe. You have to admire the people of Warsaw. Just a wonderful read.

This book is a thoughtfully written true account of life in WW11 Poland, focusing on the wife of the man who ran the Warsaw Zoo, and in fact is a reconstruction of their lives during that time based on her journals, family memories, and a variety of books and articles written just after the war. The book actually juxtaposes fascinating anecdotes of animal husbandry with the darkness (sometimes darkly humorous) of the fascism that was affecting their every move. The protagonists actually harbored over 120 Jews during the holocaust, at one time or another, most of whom eventually made aliya to Israel. The book revisits totalitarianism and mankind's nasty habit of looking the other way...something that we cannot afford to ever do.

A Gift for Grandpa this Christmas, and he read it very quickly. He has commented several times that it was a great gift.

EXCELLENT! WELL WRITTEN! I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN!!
A NEW TWIST ON THE NAZIES.BUTCH

This book gives you history of life in Poland during the Nazi occupation and the horrors of what was going on without any of the gore but with the realism and human side as well. A story of animal lovers who were lucky enough and smart enough to outsmart the invaders while saving many animals and human lives. A heartwarming story that is true.

This semi-fiction book takes a different viewpoint from most other accounts of Warsaw during World War II. Most histories I have seen/read have focused quite a bit on the Warsaw Ghetto. The zookeepers' perspective is one that brings out many interesting details of Polish Resistance efforts and some of the strange German zoological projects. Very informative.

The subject matter is powerful by itself and does not need the flowery language contrasting nature's beauty with the brutality of the holocaust. The beginning of the book is painfully slow on some rather mundane points and if I had reading a hardcopy version would have probably not continued; however, I listened to the audio CD version on a long trip. Then the end of the book seems rather rushed with few details of the Zabinskis after the war. I still highly recommend the book. This moving story deserves 5 stars but unfortunately the storyteller rates only 3.

I found this book to be an excellent combination of historical events and personal reflection. The story of the Blitzkreig and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against a woman keeping her family together, with their property serving as a conduit of a Jewish underground Railroad.

It provided me with information I previously didn't know about the Polish front. I recommend that you read this book if you read or saw Band of Brothers, Schindler's List, or Saving Private Ryan. I hope that this book also gets made into a movie.

I am really glad I decided to read this book as it informed me about a whole segment of WWII that I'd never even thought about. I loved reading about all the animals, however two pages devoted to the names of beetles was a tad ridiculous, but I really felt like I could understand the behaviors of The Zookeeper's Wife, Antonina. There are so many details in this book the author must have researched for years to complete it. It would be an excellent movie, probably more so than a book, because there are many descriptive settings and events. This was not a book I scrambled to read each night, but more of a slow growing respect for the characters and extreme hardships they, including the poor animals, all had to endure. I wouldn't recommend this book to the casual reader looking for an easy-to-read novel. If you are looking for an insightful book about a facet of the War that hasn't been over-saturated then I would highly recommend The Zookeeper's Wife.

Fascinating story of Warsaw during WWII. The Zoo was bombed and then supported by Nazi troups. Through all that the Zookeeper, and his wife, worked tirelessly to hide and help Jews escape the ghetto. The writing is clunky, but the story overshadows the awkward prose.

I am sorry to say that I did not like this book. The in-depth research is impressive. The (true)story itself is compelling, another testament to the human spirit and the courageous people who risked everything to help others survive. With all that said, I was expecting the book to read like a novel. It is surprising that such a dramatic and emotional piece of WWII heroism has been told from a perspective that removes most of the drama and emotion for the reader.

This is a good book. I bought it as a Christmas gift for my mother. She has not had time to finish it yet, but she likes what she has read so far. It got here within five days. Very positive experience.

It's not a bad book, and parts of it are thrilling. But overall, it's a bit slow in parts and I ended up skipping some sections. For example, there are parts where they go into great detail about the Zookeeper and his friend's love for beetles. There were a few other places where you could tell that they were going off on a tangent or describing side characters that wouldn't appear later. However, the encompassing story of life during WWII in Warsaw is intriguing and educational.

In THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE, author Diane Ackerman goes into great detail when she talks about a "Noah's Ark" of creatures: Wickek, the carnivorous thud rabbit; a chick that sleeps in the zookeeper's collar; a shy pink pig, Guests, Jews hiding from the Nazis; Antonia and Rys, the zookeeper's wife and son... She uses a descriptive style not common to historical texts such as this,and, although I enjoy how she employs language, it could distract some readers:

"Naturally vegetarian, arctic hares may resort to tree bark and pinecones at times, but Wicek preferred stealing a horse cutlet or slice of beef, bouncing away to devour it in a shadowy corner. According to Antonia, he'd zoom into the kitchen whenever he heard the thud of her meat tenderizing hammer, hop onto a stool, leap from there to the table and snatch a slice of raw meat, then dart away with his trophy and feast like a small panther."

Her writing brings bizarre beauty to horrific aspects of the invasion of Warsaw:

"Every bomb creates a different scent, depending on where it hits, what it boils into aerosol and the nose detects slipping apart, as molecules mix with air and float free. Then the nose can pick up ten thousand distinctive scents, from cucumber to violin resin. When a bakery was hit, the rising dirt cloud smelled of yeast sours, eggs, molasses, and rye. The mingled odors of cloves, vinegar, and burning flesh spelled the butcher's. Charred flesh and pine meant an incendiary bomb that blasted houses with a hot, fast fire, and that the people inside had died quickly."

Again, this style isn't for everyone, neither is her focus on animals and the minutia of life in the zookeeper's villa.

Note: Ackerman doesn't refer to herself until page 113, and then only a few other times until the final chapter. This pulled me out of the story; I'd have preferred she eliminated all instances of "I."

In THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE, author Diane Ackerman goes into great detail when she talks about a "Noah's Ark" of creatures: Wickek, the carnivorous thud rabbit; a chick that sleeps in the Jan zookeeper's collar; a shy pink pig; Fox Man; Guests, who hide from the Nazis, in the zookeeper's villa; Antonia, the zookeeper's wife; his son, Rys; and more. She uses a descriptive-poetic style not common to historical texts such as this,and although I enjoy how she employs language (sometimes mimicking Antonia's style in which she wrote in her diary, and, I think, a feminine take on events), this could distract some readers:

"Naturally vegetarian, arctic hares may resort to tree bark and pinecones at times, but Wicek preferred stealing a horse cutlet or slice of beef, bouncing away to devour it in a shadowy corner. According to Antonia, he'd zoom into the kitchen whenever he heard the thud of her meat tenderizing hammer, hop onto a stool, leap from there to the table and snatch a slice of raw meat, then dart away with his trophy and feast like a small panther."

Her writing brings bizarre beauty to horrific aspects of the invasion of Warsaw:

"Every bomb creates a different scent, depending on where it hits, what it boils into aerosol and the nose detects slipping apart, as molecules mix with air and float free. Then the nose can pick up ten thousand distinctive scents, from cucumber to violin resin. When a bakery was hit, the rising dirt cloud smelled of yeast sours, eggs, molasses, and rye. The mingled odors of cloves, vinegar, and burning flesh spelled the butcher's. Charred flesh and pine meant an incendiary bomb that blasted houses with a hot, fast fire, and that the people inside had died quickly."

Again, this style isn't for everyone, neither is her focus on animals and the minutia of life in the zookeeper's villa.

Note: Ackerman doesn't refer to herself until page 113, and then only a few other times until the final chapter. This pulled me out of the story; I'd have preferred she eliminated all instances of "I."

In THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE, author Diane Ackerman goes into great detail when she talks about a "Noah's Ark" of creatures: Wickek, the carnivorous thud rabbit; a chick that sleeps in the Jan zookeeper's collar; a shy pink pig; Fox Man; Guests, who hide from the Nazis, in the zookeeper's villa; Antonia, the zookeeper's wife; his son, Ryae; and more. She uses a descriptive-poetic style not common to historical texts such as this,
and, although I enjoy how she employs language (sometimes mimicking Antonia's style in which she wrote in her diary, and, I think, a feminine take on events), this could distract some readers:

"Naturally vegetarian, arctic hares may resort to tree bark and pinecones at times, but Wicek preferred stealing a horse cutlet or slice of beef, bouncing away to devour it in a shadowy corner. According to Antonia, he'd zoom into the kitchen whenever he heard the thud of her meat tenderizing hammer, hop onto a stool, leap from there to the table
and snatch a slice of raw meat, then dart away with his trophy and feast like a small panther."

Her writing brings bizarre beauty to horrific aspects of the invasion of Warsaw:

"Every bomb creates a different scent, depending on where it hits, what it boils into aerosol and the nose detects slipping apart, as molecules mix with air and float free. Then the nose can pick up ten thousand distinctive scents, from cucumber to violin resin. When a bakery was hit, the rising dirt cloud smelled of yeast sours, eggs, molasses, and rye. The mingled odors of cloves, vinegar, and burning flesh spelled the butcher's. Charred flesh and pine meant an incendiary bomb that blasted houses with a hot, fast fire, and that the people inside had died quickly."

Again, this style isn't for everyone, neither is her focus on animals and the minutia of life in the zookeeper's villa.

Note: Ackerman doesn't refer to herself until page 113, and then only a few other times until the final chapter. This pulled me out of the story; I'd have preferred she eliminated all instances of "I."

CULTIVATING DELIGHT was the first Ackerman book I read. It was about a flower garden. Ackerman is a genius at conveying the wonder in nature. She almost can't help herself, and she's at it again here with THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE. Early on in the book, she fixates on some linden trees in the park near the zoo she should be describing. She can't help but add another chapter at the end about Bialowieza, the primeval Polish forest.

Ackerman's original purpose was to show how Jan and Antonina Zabinski managed to hide over 300 Jewish refugees during WWII in the their villa and in vacant cages right under the noses of the Nazis. Once again Ackerman is better at describing the Zabinski's animals and pets than she is in describing the Zabinski's human charges. The tough little badger who survived the bombing by tunneling under his cage and swimming the river, Balbina the half wild house cat, and Wicek the bully of a rabbit are much more real than the human characters who wander in and out of the book. Which isn't to say that there aren't memorable humans as well. There's a German bug man who was so fascinated with ghetto detainee Dr. Tenenbaum's roach collection that he didn't notice Jewish men and women were being smuggled out of the ghetto right under his nose, and there's Magdalena Gross, a famous sculptress who used the zoo animals as her subjects, and pediatrician Henryk Goldszmit, who could have escaped the ghetto but instead stayed with the ghetto orphan children and went with them to the gas chamber.

We also learn something about Nazi experimentation on animals. Nazi zookeeper Lutz Heck had a program to try to back breed modern cattle to the giant auroch seen on prehistoric cave walls.

Jan Zabinski was also part of the Polish resistance from the invasion on, eventually being sent to a prison camp, and he helped smuggle dozens of Jewish detainees out of the ghetto. His wife Antonina was also adept at fooling the Nazis. When a Nazi storage area near the zoo was set on fire, she blamed it on soldiers who took their girlfriends there and were careless with their cigarettes. Ackerman also includes a frightening scene where Rhys, her son, comes close to death at the hands of an SS soldier.

I guess I was also surprised by the number of Polish civilians who were willing to risk their own lives to help the Jews, many more according to Ackerman than we have been led to believe in the history books.

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman is the story of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who ran the Warsaw Zoo in Poland before the invasion by Nazi Germany. The couple, along with their son, Rysz, treated many of the animals as family members. When the Germans swept into Poland and bombed much of the zoo, the couple did what they could to rescue the rest, which meant allowing many of them to be sent to German zoos for safekeeping. Jan soon joined the resistance, and the compound quickly became a safehouse for fugitives and fighters, both animal and human. Antonina had a powerful bond with animals, an innate, almost preternatural way of communicating with them that she was able to use to keep her and her charges safe throughout the war. The book is filled with poignant, tragic scenes. Antonina tucks Rysz into bed while outside German officers go on "safari" killing all of the animals in their cages. When he asks her what the gunshots outside are, she freezes, unable to answer his impossible question. They take a pig into the home and Rysz makes a pet of it until German soldiers mistake it for one of the farm pigs and drag it away for slaughter. Jan and Antonina show amazing episodes of bravery and courage. Jan walks several Jews out of the Warsaw Ghetto right under the noses of guards and helps them on their way out of the country. He also deliberately infects several pigs with worms, then butchers them, and puts the meat into sandwiches for the soldiers. My breath caught in my throat several times at the risks they took because it was the right thing to do. Seeing the war through Antonina's eyes makes it very real, but sometimes Ackerman skims over things that are vital to the story. Jan is imprisoned and Antonina and Rysz flee Warsaw. When they finally return home, the reunion is completely skipped, leaving the reader frustrated. Much of the stories come from Antonina's memoirs, and I wonder if Ackerman would have been better off using more of them throughout the story and letting Antonina tell the story in her own words. A subplot about the Nazi desire to recreate several extinct species including the Auroch and Tapan starts out strong, drops out completely in the center of the book, and then unexpectedly ends the story. It felt a bit out of place without more support. I am inspired by the bravery and humanity of the Zabinski family, and other readers of this book will be too.

I really wanted to like this book. I am fascinated with WWII stories. Especially of the people who survived the holocaust. This could have been another great story of human triumph over tragedy. Sadly, it was not. It was very disjointed jumping around in time and characters. It appears the author was attempting to write both a story and a technical history and failed at both. It was obviously exhaustively researched. Unfortunately, none of it appeared to have been edited and all of it, some relevant and some not, was tossed in where ever.

I am very disappointed and would not recommend this book.

In all honesty, I am having a real hard time pushing forward with this book. It's just not grabbing me and the treatment of the animals of the zoo and Rys' pets is really hard to take. I'll finish it though.

There is a wealth of information in this book; enough in fact to fill many books. The book however is written without any sense of drama or perspective. People are introduced and then dismissed.
The animals are brought to life in the pages but it is not the same for the people. The time line is also confusing as the author avoids delving into the lives of the people. At one point a baby is born without ever knowing the woman ( a main character) was pregnant. This book could have given the reader a sense, as horrible as it would have been, into life in Poland at the time of the German occupation and it does not.
The heroes in this story need better representation.

Ackerman is an accomplished and lush natural science writer who delves here into history, specifically a Polish family that has what for them an idyllic mission, to run Warsaw's zoological park pre-World War II, brought to an ugly end by the Nazi invasion.

How the inspirational family relates, commits to resistance and trying to save as many people (who the Nazis want to kill) as possible, and how the young son grows up into a world that blends reality and fantasy is fascinating. Jan, the father, is an active player in whatever he's involved in, from zoo curator to active saboteur. Rys, the young son, is the innocent witness coming to maturity in this ever-changing environment. And the centrepiece is Antonina, the Zookeeper's Wife, the hub of keeping this swirl of zookeeping and subversion and family life and political movement all together.

Ackerman's writing sometimes shoots the moon, which I like. Sometimes source material is limited, and rather than try to make too much of of scant ingredients, she writes around topics I was very curious about. And I *think* my one hesitation about the book is caused by that spotty information...at times the narrative lurches forward leaving out connective information a history would normally have.

Lovely writing about brave and relentless people who had heart and love for nature and and animals and people and took action without hesitation when action was neccessary.

This fascinating book shows the worst in human beings and also the best in human beings, and also fascinating information about animals. The language is a little "flowery" but it's worth getting past that to read this story. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed reading this, hearing this war story for the first time. I've read a lot about WWII, but this was the first I ever heard of this zoo story. The author, however, seemed to go off on meaningless little stories... how one guy liked to hunt, how another collected bugs, and here is a good way to collect bugs... I never got to the point where I felt for the victims, since the author didn't seem to write it to feel sorry for anyone but the animals, and that one guys' bug collection, that *gasp* got re-boxed to be displayed differently for a museum. My grandfather faught in WWII, so I have his stories, and other books written by survivors in my mind when I think... would they have really cared if this one guys bug collection got reboxed? Where she would spend one paragraph on someone dying (the man who owned the bug collection that lived and died in the Warsaw ghetto got less mention than his bugs), she would spend a chapter on bugs.

I wouldn't say don't read this story, but don't buy the book. Get it at the library, and feel free to skip past the meaningless chapters to find and read the meaningful history in this book.

The Zookeeper's Wife is an excellent book with a unique perspective of the Holocaust. It is based on the journals of the wife of the zookeeper at the Warsaw Zoo in Poland when it is first invaded by the Nazis. She has raised many of the zoo's animals by hand and is devastated when the zoo is bombed and animals killed. She worries how she will protect her young son if she can not even protect the animals. I have read many books on the Holocaust, but none quite like this. By reading it you will learn about history through a woman and mother's eyes, animals, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Polish Resistance. Although it is sad, I could not put the book down.

The subject of this book is one of the more fascinating and gripping stories yet to come to light of Resistance activities in Nazi-occupied Europe. And particularly gratifying, the protagonists survive the War. The story deserves wide circulation. But it also deserves -- nay, cries for -- a much better telling than this. Among other reviewers (e.g., John Sollami, P. Earl Berg, and Barb Mechalke, each of whose reviews I second) I found the writing sub-par, to put it charitably. The book is far too breezily written; the author displays unwarranted airs of omniscience; there are many distracting digressions and even more excursions into needless explanation of the obvious and repeated detail. Basically, the author treats her reader as a child or a simpleton or both.

I don't understand how W.W. Norton & Co. published it as it is. In any event, it is an ominous sign that perhaps the standards are slipping at that publishing house. As for the three noted writers who provided the gushing testimonials on the rear cover of the dust-jacket, they each have lost some credibility with me.

Both military libraries and general-interest holdings strong in compassionate World War II accounts will find THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE an engrossing true story, telling of two zookeepers in the Warsaw Zoo who saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. With most of their animals dead from the inversion of Germany, the zookeeper began smuggling Jews into empty cages to save them - and kept ammunition buried in animal enclosures. The lives of the zookeepers, remaining animals and precious human charges provides a warm set of insights into the courage of individuals during the war.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch