Annette Libeskind Berkovits

This biography briefly covers Annette’s birth in Kyrgyzstan, follows her early years in Poland and Israel before focusing on she became Senior Vice President of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City. Her career path took an unexpected turn when she went back to work after the birth of her child. Intrigued by an ad for a non-profit, she applied, and ends up working for the Society at the Bronx Zoo. Unlike many of her colleagues, working with animals was not an instinctive. As education coordinator, she expected to spend time working behind the scenes with people not in the forefront with animals, reptiles, and birds. Her tale of her first day encounter with a snake set the stage. Soon she begins carting animals across the city to the Captain Kangaroo Show and creates the first zoo camps for children. She used innovated techniques she developed to introduce environmental education programs in China. The book highlights thirty years of combining animal conservation with science along with odd animal and human behavior. Throughout, she constantly faced self-doubt, sexism, and antiqued zoological practices. She documents her journey with humor, miscalculations, missteps, and undeniable successes.

This is the author’s second book. The first, “In the Unlikeliest of Places”, is the story of how her father survived the Nazis, Gulags, and Soviet Communism before emigrated first to Israel and then to the United States.

I received this book through Net Galley. Although encouraged as a courtesy to provide feedback to the publisher, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.… (lisätietoja)

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an early reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not going to lie. I didn't love this book as much as I had hoped. The chapters are fairly short and told like little vignettes from the author's childhood, then her career with the Bronx Zoo. The writing felt simplistic to me. On the other hand, it was very easy to understand (never a bad thing, right?). I found myself going back and forth between wishing the writing was more elegant and appreciating its simple storytelling quality. Ultimately, the stories were interesting enough to keep me going throughout. Her career has afforded her some amazing and quirky experiences!… (lisätietoja)