The Peaceable Kingdom: A Year in the Life of America's Oldest Zoo by John Sedgwick (1988)

The Peaceable Kingdom
A Year in the Life of America's Oldest Zoo
by John Sedgwick
Publisher: William Morrow & Company, Inc.
Copyright: 1988
Book Club Edition

What James Herriot has done for the farm animals of Yorkshire, John Sedgwick gas done for the exotic animals of the Philadelphia Zoo. He fully evokes a delightful cast of characters (many of them four-footed) and an extraordinary landscape -- indeed a world of art.

The Philadelphia Zoo is America's oldest and, as Mr. Sedgwick writes in his introduction, "most intimate and charming" zoo. It is filled with colorful Victorian architecture and expansive English-style gardens, as well as a wide variety of exotic animals and a complete array of unusually dedicated keepers, veterinarians, and professional staff.

Mr. Sedgwick spent a year at the zoo, and he re-creates the many adventures he witnessed with high drama that is completely engaging and often hilarious:

* A young elephant keeper -- a Vietnam veteran -- struggles to win the trust of the zoo's four unusually shrewd and treacherous elephants.

* After a lifetime of celibacy, the zoo's Indian rhino, Billy, finally gets a chance to mate with Xavira (named after the Happy Hooker) is flown in from Switzerland in a bold attempt to propagate a rare species.

* A young laboratory technician is heartbroken when the little bearcat she has hand-raised is sold to another zoo.

* And a handsome female wolf is challenged by her sister for the right to mate with the pack's only male, and their story is witnessed daily by a devoted amateur called the Wolf Lady.

This is a book about the enduring love of man for animals, from the top of the zoo's multifaceted organization to the bottom. The ebullient director and his talented staff keep the kingdom functioning with rare wisdom and aplomb. the veterinarians care for strange species that are not covered in any textbook or veterinary medicine, spend hours in surgery to save a dying animal, and pass many sleepless nights worrying about their exotic patients. The keepers, many of whom hold graduate degrees, put up with long hours, low wages, and many physical hazards in their devotion to their animal charges. And the visitors play their parts, turning out year after year to see their old friends at the zoo.

For animal lovers of every stripe, The Peaceable Kingdom is a book to make you laugh and weep, to rejoice at the compassion of this much-loved animal garden, then to help you view your own zoo with new awareness and insights.

Condition: Used. Hardcover. Dust cover shows shelf wear and discoloration from age. Pages are tanning from age. Previous owner's "Library of" stamp is on the front endpaper.

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