Wild Animals I Have Known
I’ve got a bit of catching up to do, so three posts in a row!
Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson Seton was selected for me by another LibraryThing member as a part of this year’s SantaThing [a grab-bag for book-lovers]. My Santa selected it for me because of my love for James Herriot and other animal-type stories, and it turned out to be a wise choice indeed. Unlike Herriot’s work, though, these stories don’t all have happy endings — the introduction warned me of this, though, so I was prepared. My edition also came with Seton’s original sketches and drawings distributed liberally throughout, which I found to be a really nice addition to the stories. The stories themselves are mostly true [I say 'mostly' because Seton admits in the introduction to that a couple of the animal characters are composites of several he observed] and based on his experiences while working and living in Canada.
The stories are both brutal and sweet — Seton’s portrayal of the creatures is charming and wonderful, but being that these are wild creatures, the tales often come to a bittersweet end.
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