The chimpanzee book: Apes like us by Dr Carla Litchfield
Black dog books, 2009. ISBN 978 1742030746.
Non fiction, Recommended. Dr Carla Litchfield, an animal behaviour
scientist with ZoosSA, has written another children's book for black
dog books, this time about the chimpanzee, giving a huge amount of
information within a few pages, underscoring the need for people to be
aware of the need for conservation, and entertaining the reader along
the way.
Like the series, Wild Planet, published by this company, Apes
like
us
has double page spreads of information with maps, short paragraphs of
facts and lots of clear, explicit photographs, telling us about the
difference between chimps and bonobos, behaviour, culture, habitat, as
well as a large map to show us where they live. Some fascinating pieces
of information are given in these pages: they are omnivore, eating
mainly fruit but also monkeys and small animals, baby chimps stay with
mum for eight years or so, they use tools, and so on. After these
introductory pages, double page spreads are devoted to specific
communities of chimps like those who live in Gombe (made famous by Dr
Jane Goodall) or Bossou (where the chimps have learnt to cross a busy
road) and Tai to name a few. Each page outlines where this group lives
and marks out its differences to other groups.
Reading like a story, the information is at once fascinating and
unsettling as we come to the pages where we learn of their habitat
destruction. Of the million or so chimps once living in central Africa,
some 300,000 remain. Dr Litchfield ends the book with suggestions about
how the reader can help save these animals, and with its brief but
useful index, content information and web sites, makes this a wonderful
book for use n the classroom.
Dr Litchfield's book, Saving pandas is inspirational, and so is
this.
In this Year of the Forests, this would make a stimulating addition to
the work done by classes on conservation, as the destruction of the
forests is one of the major issues outlined by Dr Litchfield.
Fran Knight