My Family and Other Animals

I've seen this memoir on several "best 100 books ever" lists lately, which made me very curious to read it. No disappointments! My Family and Other Animals is the story of the time the Durrell family spent in Greece. Written by Gerald Durrell and told about his boyhood, it tells about his great family. They leave England because they need a change and want to see the sun. Gerry is the youngest of four children, and has a great love of nature, especially all things living and has quite the talent for bringing home toads, scorpions, water snakes, various and assorted birds... to add to his collection. The way that his mother deals with the chaos is most impressive. Gerry meets all sorts of characters in his wandering and must put up with some tutors that have questionable teaching techniques, but manages to have a wonderful year in spite of it all. This book was great fun- I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions, and is a must read, especially for mothers of boys. One of my favorite passages is in the introduction, and I think it sums up the tone of the book very well.

I should like to pay a special tribute to my mother, to whom this book is dedicated... As my brother Larry rightly points out, we can be proud of the way we have brought her up; she is a credit to us. That she has reached that happy Nirvana where nothing shocks or startles is exemplified by the fact that one weekend recently, when all alone in the house, she was treated to the sudden arrival of a series of crates containing two pelicans, a scarlet ibis, a vulture, and eight monkeys. A lesser mortal might have quailed at such a contigency, but not Mother. On Monday morning I found her in the garage being pursued round and round by an irate pelican which she was trying to feed with sardines from a tin.

"I'm glad you've come, dear," she panted; "this pelican is a little difficult to handle."

When I asked her how she knew the animals belonged to me, she replied, "Well, of course I knew they were yours, dear; who else would send pelicans to me?"