Split between accounts of wildlife and family pets, Featured Creatures ranges from Arctic to tropics to the savannahs of Tanzania, introducing baboons, wildebeest, tortoises, and a wounded loon. Gandbhir focuses on animal habits and puts herself in their position when it comes to feeding, travel, and many other daily activities, and she touchingly intertwines her children and husband’s experiences in each chapter. Her eventual surrender to the needs of the creatures entering “her space” is charming, a series of milestones of interspecies empathy: “Many spiders weaved their webs on our porch poles again,” she writes, “but the cute spider with the red dot never reappeared. After that, I stopped sweeping the spiderwebs.”
The high importance animals play in the lives of children shines through, especially in chapters about pets, whose personalities and quirks move her. She writes with welcome candor about hard decisions that her children still are upset over, such as giving away some cats, and she describes her journey toward allowing pets into her home with warmth and humor. Throughout she reminds us that the impact animals make in our lives cannot be measured—and neither can our responsibility toward them.
Takeaway: Touching stories of pets and wildlife from a reluctant animal lover.
Comparable Titles: Sy Montgomery’s How to Be A Good Creature, Nick Trout’s Ever By My Side.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
