My Favorite Animal Books!

How I loved animals as a child!!

They were my family with love unending.
Always patient with my impatience.

A trip to the bookstore was almost too much...how to decide.

One birthday I recieved the book, The Lion!

Imagine!

A story about a girl in Africa. She is so incredibly patient to win over her lion.

Soft fur and yellow eyes, but strong, so strong.

Protection at her side.

She tells all her lonlieness to the lion, curled in his front paws.
I absorbed it as if it were true.

I knew I could tame a lion, or an elephant, or a giraffe!

Animal fantasy kept me going.

Play with Me

No matter what, hugging warm soft dogs, cats, parakeets and ducks (yes, birds would let me hug their warm bodies against your cheek, albeit with hearts racing). If I was still and quiet (rarely, to be sure) I could spot fawns, king snakes, chipmunks, and jays. The sky was so blue then.

My favorite books about animals:

Anything by Ernest Thompson Seton

Dog stories.

Paul Gallico

Books about the Old West...they had not machines, only animals for work.

Beetles, Bugs, Butterflies

California Mammals

Birds, Wolves, Deer, Elk, Moose.

Books about Bears.

Big Cats.

Marsupials and Australian animas.

Mastadons, Saber Tooth Tigers, Mice.

Chipmunks, Squirrels, Porcupines.

But back then...

Laying around the garden,

peering in the overgrown flower beds from a dry spot on the lawn...

watching wild birds and butterflies and bugs...Not bad.

In fact that's what I call a great childhood!!

Now I'm riding every week.

How perfect...exercise with animals!