Wild Heart: The Story of Joy Adamson, Author of Born Free - Hardcover

Neimark, Anne E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152013687 ISBN 13: 9780152013684

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 1999

Synopsis

Joy Adamson is renowned for her work on behalf of orphaned wild animals and environmental movements. She revolutionized the public’s view of the emotional capacity of animals. She also produced paintings that chronicled the flora and fauna of Africa, and paintings of tribal men and women in traditional clothing. But she is best known as the author of Born Free, the story of Elsa, the lion cub she tamed and raised and eventually released into the wild. Anne E. Neimark’s biography tells the dramatic story of the extraordinary adventure of Joy Adamson’s life.

About this title

About the Author:

Anne E. Neimark is a renowned author whose reader-friendly approach to writing biographies has allowed many young people to learn about the lives of famous and important people.  She is the author of Diego Rivera, Artist of the People and Che!  She lives near Chicago.

From Kirkus Reviews:

. Adamson is revered as one of the pioneers of the endangered animal movement; Neimark, though capturing much of Adamson's milieu and the events of her life, paints her as a talented, but impulsive, moody woman. Growing up in Austria between world wars, Adamson trained as a pianist and as an artist. At 18, while attending a ball, she is carried off by a masked ``apache'' who declares, ``You are mine.'' The author burbles: ``She felt the strength of his arms and the gritty warmth of his body.'' That's only one instance where the lack of source notes is keenly felt; readers will have to digest some astonishing information unaided. Although her romantic interlude lasts two years, her lover's identity remains concealed (readers will have to suppose that she knew who he was, even if they don't); Adamson, pregnant and abandoned, has an abortion, becomes a patient of Sigmund Freud, marries twice, and has two miscarriages before meeting her third husband, George Adamson, a gamekeeper in Kenya, who brings home three orphaned lion cubs. The many anecdotes comprising this biography are interesting, but without citations, leave readers unsettled; what is the possible source for Adamson's dramatic death scene following a confrontation with a disgruntled ex-employee? ``Blood seeped from her, but she felt no regrets. She had always chosen risk over safety. She would not, even now, be victim to fear.'' (bibliography, index) (Biography. 12-14) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0152013687
• ISBN 13: 9780152013684
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 118