[book_talk] book review: Sara Gruen

From: "Bonnie L. Sherrell" <blslarner@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Blind Chit Chat" <Blind-Chit-Chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Books for the Blind" <Books4theblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Blind Book Lovers Cafe" <bblc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Book Talk" <book_talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:46:16 -0800

_Water for Elephants_ by Sara Gruen
read by David LeDoux and John Randolph Jones

I have had this in print for about ten years, and two years ago found it as an
audiobook on CD at Barnes and Noble.  I copied it to the hard drive for my
Compaq laptop, and put it onto my MP3 player so I could listen to it in the car
hooked up to my stereo system.

Jacob Jankowski was just about to sit for his final exams in veterinary science
when he was advised during a lecture that his parents had just died in an auto
accident and he went home to see to their funerals.  Then he learned that his
father had mortgaged the house and his own veterinary practice heavily to see
Jacob in college, and now that he's dead the bank was seizing all of the
family's assets.

Returning to do his final examinations, Jacob found himself unable to make sense
of the words on his test papers, and he ended up walking out of the building and
hopping aboard a train, seeking somehow to flee the tragedies he'd known in the
past two weeks.  Only it turned out not to be just any train, proving to be the
private train owned by the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.  It
was the beginning of the Great Depression, and everyone able to get and maintain
a job with the circus felt himself fortunate.  That the circus needed a
veterinarian, even if he hadn't finished writing his final exams, proved
providential for Jacob, who quickly found himself working with the animals and
loving it.

But the circus is its own world with its own rules governing both life and
death, and Jacob soon saw the darker side of his new situation.  Can he find a
way to protect the elephant Rosie, Marlaina who stars in the equestrian act, and
himself from the brutality of Marlaina's mentally ill husband and the
dog-eat-dog attitude of the circus owner?

The story is told in flashbacks from the memories of Jacob in his old age.  Can
a guy of ninety-three, or is it ninety-five? be happy merely visiting the circus
when years ago he was part of it?  And is the nursing home where he now lives
willing to let him go?  The two readers, one for young Jacob and one for the
near-centinarian, do a superb job of narrating the book.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large

"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very 
wise cannot see all ends." LOTR

"Don't go where I can't follow."

[book_talk] book review: Sara Gruen

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