Kourtney's Book Review

Information:

Title: My Life with the Chimpanzees

Author: Jane Goodall

Publisher: Pocket Books

Place & Year of Publication: USA, April 1996

Number of Pages: 156

Where I Found the Book: School library

Story Review:

Jane Goodall herself wrote this book and she tells us her story. Jane was born in London on April 3, 1934. She lived in England with her mom, dad, and younger sister Judy, till she was 5 years old. Then they moved to France. But when WWII started it was no longer safe to live in France, so they moved back to England.

When she was 7 years old she read “The Story of Doctor Dolittle”. That’s when she decided that she had to go to Africa someday. She became very interested in animals and she started to study animals near her home- squirrels, birds, and all kinds of insects. She spent a lot of time with horses and taught tricks to her dog Buds and her neighbours dog Rusty.

After she finished school she lived with a family in Germany for a few months, because her mom wanted her to visit the country that had been their enemy during the war. When she moved back to England she went to school in London to become a secretary, because her mom had told her that secretaries could work anywhere in the world.

One day Jane received a letter from her old school friend, Clo. Clo’s parents had bought a farm in Kenya and Clo invited Jane to visit. Finally Jane’s dream had come true. She was going to Africa!

While she was in Africa she got a job. She was a secretary for Louis Leakey. Louis was an anthropologist and paleontologist (in other words, he studied animals and Early Man). When Jane had raised enough money she sent a check to her mom so she could come to Africa.

Louis Leakey had told Jane of some chimpanzees he heard of living in Tanganyika. Jane wanted to go and study these chimpanzees. Through many struggles, Jane was able to go and study the chimpanzees, and her mom was with her for a while. Jane tells us all about what she did and what she learned.

There’s the constant theme of adventure in this book as Jane talks about some amazing experiences she had in the jungle. She traveled a lot and her life was far from dull. The book is titled “My Life with the Chimpanzees” because the book is about Jane’s life studying the chimpanzees.

Christian Perspective:

Jane talks about going to church regularly and stuff like that but she never actually says that she’s a Christian. But it would’ve taken A LOT of courage to go live in the wild with the chimpanzees. Christians need that type of courage. God gives us courage like that. Studying animals in the wild also takes a lot of patience. Patience is definitely a gift from God. Unfortunately, not a lot of people have that gift. At least, that’s what it seems like.  We can learn a lot from Jane’s life.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this book. Sometimes autobiographies can be a little slow or boring but Jane wrote in a way that makes you want to keep going. She connects with the reader. I choose this book because I’ve heard a lot about Jane’s life and it sounded very interesting, so I wanted to find out for myself what her whole story was.  I’d recommend this book to someone who loves animals or someone who wants to work with animals when they’re older because that’s what Jane did. Almost everybody’s heard of Jane Goodall but I encourage you to read the book anyways because she has some amazing stories!