Animal Camp: Lessons in Love and Hope from Rescued Farm Animals

by Kathy Stevens

Overview

Picking up where she left off in Where the Blind Horse Sings, Kathy Stevens regales us with more tales of the rescued animals at Catskill Animal Sanctuary (CAS), some touching, some hilarious, all provocative. We meet Barbie, the broiler hen found hiding under a blue Honda in Brooklyn who falls for the animal ambassador Rambo, a ram with an uncanny sense of what others need. Then there’s Norma Rae, the turkey rescued from a “turkey bowl” just before Thanksgiving. There’s also Noah, a twenty-one-year-old stallion, starved and locked in a dark stall for his entire life until he came to the safety and plenty of CAS. Claude, the giant pink free-range pig, is but another of the “underfoot family,” those who roam the barnyard, free and with dignity, interacting with their own and other species in startling and profound ways.

The love Stevens has for these animals, and the amount of love they give her in return, is stunning and will make any reader more thoughtful of how we treat a whole class of animals in this country. Pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, horses, goats, sheep, and more, march into CAS and into our hearts as we learn about their quirks and personalities and what makes us human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626363731
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	09/08/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Giving up a thriving eleven-year teaching career, Kathy Stevens bought a disastrously rundown farm on a vast number of acres, and with sheer determination, boundless compassion, and limited funds, turned it into an acclaimed haven for abused livestock, the Catskills Animal Sanctuary. Her books, Where the Blind Horse Sings and Animal Camp, present heartening stories of the difficult work that has gone into saving more than 2,000 lives since the sanctuary’s 2001 founding.

What People are Saying About This

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

"Animal Camp is an incredibly moving,
beautiful, sincere, honest book—one that, if read with a complete open heart,
will have the capacity to change lives!

Editorial Reviews

The majority of Stevens's somewhat didactic narrative focuses on her and her dedicated staff's time spent at the Catskill Animal Sanctuary, "a peaceful haven for needy farm animals" in New York's Hudson Valley. Stevens opened the Sanctuary in 2003 and speaks of it highly: "Six small barns house our pigs, cows, goats, and sheep, while some twenty other outbuildings provide deluxe digs for our horses, donkeys, and smaller animal friends... chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese." Stevens (Where the Blind Horse Sings) recalls with pride and delight experiences with her dog Murphy; Hazel, a pig in serious heat; and Norman, a turkey she'd rescued before Thanksgiving and subsequently renamed Norma Jean (upon discovering that "Norman" was in fact female). It's easy, pleasant reading, but when the discussion turns to veganism, Stevens shows her alarmist side ("growing animals to feed humans is the primary cause of global warming"). She may alienate readers by challenging their food choices and suggesting that animal lovers would never consume meat or dairy, but her ability to tell enjoyable stories about her menagerie takes the sting out of her polemic.
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Publishers Weekly

"Animal Camp is an incredibly moving,
beautiful, sincere, honest book—one that, if read with a complete open heart,
will have the capacity to change lives!"

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson