Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo

 

Shirley J.   Adult Non-Fiction      Betty White,  Introduces Readers to some of her animal friends

Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo by Betty White    329 pages

A sweet telling of stories about many of Betty White's animal friends and animal encounters.  She speaks of her parents, who being animal lovers themselves, instilled a deep love and respect for animals into Betty from age 4 on up.   (Her Dad drew the line at snakes.  He was terrified of them - 3 looked like thousands to him.)   Betty had no fear of animals and while mammals and birds were more cuddly, she had no phobias about snakes, alligators, lizards, komodo dragons, toads, etc. and shared her deep abiding love of all creatures great and small with the world every chance she got along with her mission to save endangered animals as much as possible.   She realizes not everyone is fond of animals being kept in zoos, but, she makes a good case for those animals in the wild being poached making zoos seem a safer environment with food, shelter, health care provided.  Betty was no fool, she knows the difference between a good animal sanctuary and bad ones and speaks out about that.  She also championed getting information to people to not purchase exotic animals.    She extolled the dangers and cruelty of releasing exotic animals into domestic environs when people grow tired of them as pets  or they get too big or too hard to handle.    The photos included are so beautiful they practically become 3-D and jump off the page, thanks to the excellent photography skills of Tad Motoyama, official photographer for the Los Angeles Zoo.   Excellent book.   This would be a great read to book for the very young, with the wonderful photos that go along with Betty's many remembrances of her animal friends, and also a great read for any age.   I enjoyed it thoroughly.  It is a wonderful now tribute to a special lady who did her best to help the cause of animals throughout the world.