Suggested Reading: Thirteen Gold Monkeys

I will be forgoing "Activism Spotlight" today. I'm busy preparing for my departure to Texas tomorrow!

Suggested Reading

 Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at zoos and conservation programs? Have you ever heard about the release of captive animals into the wild, and wondered how it was done? Is wildlife conservation important to you? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you need to get your hands on a copy of Benjamin Beck’s Thirteen Gold Monkeys.

    Beck was a part of the first ever expedition to reintroduce zoo born golden lion tamarins from the United States into the wild coastal rainforests of Brazil. Between 1983 and 2005, Beck helped coordinate the release of 149 zoo born golden lion tamarins into the wild. Thirteen Gold Monkeys is the fictionalized account of Beck’s adventures with the first two of these reintroductions, in which the reader sees both the humans’ and the monkeys’ points of view. In the story, Beck gives us rare glimpses of what it takes to organize and run a zoo, the infinitely complicated process of preparing zoo animals for the wild, and the scientists’ and caretakers’ emotional entanglement with the animals they are responsible for.

Suggested Reading: Featuring Rebecca DeSol

Suggested Reading

It is my pleasure to introduce Viridorari’s first guest writer, my eleventh grade English teacher, Rebecca DeSol! Mrs. DeSol is an inspirational and insightful human being with an unprecedented amount of devotion to her students. When I leave high school and head off into the world, I will remember her for her caring soul and our shared enjoyment for deep, philosophical conversation. She is one of the best high school teachers there is, and I can’t think of anyone better to kick off Viridorari’s “Suggested Reading” section. Today, she will be sharing Feed with you, a futuristic fiction novel by M.T. Anderson she teaches her students. While the focus of this book is the influence of technology on society, it also provides a horrifying view of what our future planet could be like if we keep traveling on our path of environmental destruction. First, I’ll get you started with some information about Mrs. DeSol, and then I’ll let her sweep you away with her prolific and thought-provoking writing. 

    Mrs. DeSol teaches at Pal-Mac High School, and she wishes she had the time and energy to ride her bike to work, she would like to see renewable energy made more available, and she needs to save her money for a house with a bigger backyard so she can grow more vegetables to eat and share with friends in the summer.  In the meantime, she composts when she can (trudging through a foot of snow makes a garbage can appealing sometimes), avoids eating meat, and believes her students will not only find the answers they seek, but act upon their questions, continuing to change our world for the better.