The Wisdom of Sheep & Other Animals: Observations from a Family Farm
by Rosamund Young
ISBN 9780571368259
Rosamund Young grew up on a farm and has farmed her whole life. Now she runs a farm with her brother, Richard, and her partner, Gareth. This book is a collection of some of her stories about being a farmer, the animals on her farm, and her interactions with them. She anthropomorphizes throughout and is quite sure she knows what each animal is thinking and trying to communicate to her. That may or may not be off-putting for readers, but I just took this with a pinch of salt and enjoyed the stories for what they are. The title highlights sheep, and there are stories about sheep, but most are about the cows. That's fine--they are all entertaining stories and very enjoyable to read. A few of them did end quite abruptly and seemed like they weren't quite finished. I would have liked to have read more about these particular situations. Overall, however, the book was fun to read. I kept thinking that it's a pleasant book. It seems like it'd be a great book to have around so it could be picked up and opened at random whenever one wanted a pick-me-up or just had a few minutes in which to be entertained. It's that kind of book--it would make an already good day even better and would provide a few minutes of ease in a more difficult day. Or it can be enjoyably read in sequence from start to finish as I read it. .
Thanks toNetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a digital review copy.
6 comments:
“It’s that kind of book - the kind that would make a good day even better.” That seems to me to be as fine a recommendation as one might have. It may be anthropomorphic but there does seem to be a willingness of late to try to understand animals and acknowledge that they are not mere automatons. All to the good if you aske me. Thanks for this review.
Yes, I agree! We should try to understand non-human animals more on their own terms and not see them as objects for our own use. I know that animals do communicate with us, especially if we have a bond with them as she does with hers. I do think we run the risk of assuming we know what animals are thinking based on our human experience. That's a problem even between humans :-) So we have to be careful.
One of our Grandsons loves animals, I wonder if he may enjoy this book...
All the best Jan
I don't know how old your grandson is, but I'll mention the fact that there are one or two mentions of end-of-life moments for the animals as well as a few mentions of animals in distress and also reproduction. Not sure if any of that would be an issue for your grandson, so I thought I'd let you know :-)
Hello Shari, many thanks for the additional information, which I will keep in mind.
I do also check with his parents before buying him any books.
Hope you've had an enjoyable Sunday.
All the best Jan
Checking is good, Jan :-)
I think you'd enjoy it, Vicki.
The author has a previous book called The Secret Life of Cows, which I have not read.
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