Dear Reader,
A reminder, there are two ways to win at the book club this week and two fun, bird-themed kitchen towels waiting to be delivered to (two) lucky book club readers.
First, look at the photos I've posted. My daughter sent me pictures of what she discovered in her backyard. Guess what kind of baby birds are pictured, and you'll be entered in one of this week's giveaways.
Second, share a bird story with me and you'll be entered in this week's second giveaway. Email: [email protected]
Please Welcome Today's Guest Author...
Allison Montclair grew up devouring hand-me-down Agatha Christie paperbacks and James Bond movies. As a result of this deplorable upbringing, Montclair became addicted to tales of crime, intrigue, and espionage. She now spends her spare time poking through the corners, nooks, and crannies of history, searching for the odd mysterious bits and transforming them into novels of her own. Allison's new mystery, set in 1946 London, is "A Royal Affair."
Zoos in War and Plague
I am a zoo lover, as is my spouse. So much so that we spent the first two days of our honeymoon visiting the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. [How we spent our nights is none of your business!] I have been following the plight of zoos during the pandemic, and find myself comparing their current crisis to that of the London Zoo during World War Two, which I've been researching for my own work.
Zoos may not leap immediately to mind when one thinks of essential services, but they are. They bring the world's diversity to us for education and study. They preserve the endangered while allowing us to study how to bring them back from the brink of extinction.
And in WWII, they provided much-needed morale to their equally endangered human hosts. The London Zoo stayed open despite the Blitz, despite rationing, despite the exodus from the city. Pretty young women were recruited to become guides, their smiling, uniformed ranks captured on camera and sent around the country to cheer it up. Rota the lion, who lived in a suburban house in Middlesex until the advent of meat rationing forced his owners to donate him, was "given" by the Zoo to Prime Minister Winston Churchill to celebrate Allied victories in North Africa. Churchill gleefully fed Rota steaks while British Pathe newsreel cameras cranked away, turning the creature into a symbol of British might.
The Zoo suffered during the war as well. Wayward bombs destroyed various animal houses. A more somber effect was the decision, anticipating the effects of the bombing, to put to death all the poisonous inhabitants, lest they be unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. That these should have been killed but not the predators of the mammal family who would be more likely to attack humans I personally attribute to the perceived public fears of the crawly versus the furry.
Once the war had ended, the Zoo faced the problem of replenishing its population. One interesting source of renewal: Demobilised soldiers returning from every part of the globe; from deserts, from jungles and from islands. Many brought back living souvenirs, and when confronted with the needs of the Zoo, or the desires of their families, creatures plucked from their war-torn habitats were given a new home where they could be on display. [In my mind, this was accompanied by the frenzied shrieks of "I'm not 'aving that 'orrid thing in my 'ouse!"]
Our zoos today face drastic drops in revenue from being closed to visitors. They keep going nevertheless, feeding and caring for their denizens. Don't omit them from your charity. They are essential.
-- Allison Montclair
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
AUTHORBUZZ: Click here to discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.
THE HOUSE OF LONG AGO by Steve Berry & M. J. Rose
The time has come for Cassiopeia Vitt to sell her ancestral home. It sits on a Spanish bluff, by the Mediterranean, and bears the name Casa de Hace Mucho Tiempo, The House of Long Ago. Inside her family home Cassiopeia revisits memories of her rebellious adolescence and now regretful days when she often found herself estranged from her parents. She also revisits her father's private art collection. Each of the fifteen paintings is a masterpiece, together representing an investment in the ten of millions of euros--which she intends to donate to museums. But when an art expert declares all the paintings fake and suggests her father may have been involved with something illegal, Cassiopeia embarks on a quest to find answers.
Go to: AUTHORBUZZ click on THE HOUSE OF LONG AGO to read more and to email authors Steve Berry & M.J. Rose, you'll get a reply.
KIDSBUZZ: Click here to discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.
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