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West with Giraffes
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West With Giraffes / Lynda Rutledge - 4****
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West With Giraffes � Lynda Rutledge
Book on CD performed by Danny Campbell
4****
As the world struggles to escape the Great Depression, and on the cusp of a new World War, orphan Woodrow Wilson Nickel finds himself cast adrift in the wake of the devastating Hurricane of 1938. Stumbling about hoping to find some shelter he comes across a scene that completely changes his life.
Rutledge based this work of historical fiction on an actual event: In 1938 two giraffes DID survive a hazardous ocean voyage and then an arduous cross-country road trip to finally arrive at the San Diego Zoo. Belle Benchley was the first woman to head the San Diego Zoo. But Woody, Red, and “the old man� are fictional characters, marvelous though they be.
I was completely captivated by this story. It helps that I am a big fan of road trips, especially getting off the major interstates and following the less-traveled “blue highways.� I’ve traveled through much of the landscape this group drove through. I recall those “wigwam� motor courts (never stayed in one, though). My family was helped by a local farm family when our car broke down in the middle of nowhere (on a Sunday, no less). I know what it’s like to drive the switchbacks of mountain roads, or a long empty drive across a desert plateau. This made the novel all the more real to me.
Woody is a wonderful character, and narrator, though I did get tired of the “breaks� that brought us back to the present when he is anxious to finish writing his memoir while in a nursing home, and away from the road trip itself.
Rutledge balances Woody’s naivete and basic good instincts, with the Old Man’s experience and compassion. I’m not sure we really needed Red’s storyline, other than as a reason for Woody to write his memoirs.
Danny Campbell does a superb job of performing the audiobook. The basic story is, after all, told by a very old man; Woody is 105 when he sets out to write his memories of that historic road trip. And Campbell give him an “old voice� throughout, which I found very effective for this work.
LINK to my review