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Mother Animal
When Helen Jukes falls pregnant, she does what anyone else would do. She searches for information to help make sense of the changes underway inside her. But as the months pass and her body becomes increasingly strange, the pregnancy guides seem insufficient; even the advice of her friends feels oppressive.
So she widens her frame of reference, looking beyond humans to ask what motherhood looks like in other species. Here she begins a process of wilder enquiry, in which stories of spiders, polar bears, bonobos and burying beetles (among others) begin to unsettle and expand her notion of what mothering is; what it could be.
A passionate, visceral and intimate account of a body changed, Mother Animal combines personal memoir with fresh insights from evolutionary biology, zoology and toxicology to ask the big questions that lie at the heart of what it means to be alive – and a mother – today.
So she widens her frame of reference, looking beyond humans to ask what motherhood looks like in other species. Here she begins a process of wilder enquiry, in which stories of spiders, polar bears, bonobos and burying beetles (among others) begin to unsettle and expand her notion of what mothering is; what it could be.
A passionate, visceral and intimate account of a body changed, Mother Animal combines personal memoir with fresh insights from evolutionary biology, zoology and toxicology to ask the big questions that lie at the heart of what it means to be alive – and a mother – today.
- GenresNonfictionNatureMemoir
209 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 27, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 4, 2025
When she found out she was pregnant, Jukes (author of A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings) lost herself in research, looking for parallels in the natural world. A friend had told her that “childbirth puts you more in touch with your animal side.” Her daughter was born at the start of the pandemic and so early motherhood was perhaps more than usually isolated and emotionally challenging for her. She had an unexpected C-section after the placenta failed to nourish her daughter sufficiently, and then struggled to breastfeed. “I was, I realised, a little afraid of the baby. I’d expected to feel a sense of recognition – to see in her face some sign of familiarity,” but that wasn’t the case. “She was so … other.”
The long thematic chapters present Jukes’s experiences in parallel to those of other mothering creatures with pregnancy, birth, lactation, making a home (nesting) and enlisting the help of the community. Peppered throughout are trivia she shares with boyfriend, baby and readers. Such as that burying beetles lay eggs on a carcass so their babies feed on carrion from day one. That bonobo females attend births, acting as midwives for each other. That Madrid’s storks have started eating and lining their nests with what they find in landfill instead of migrating to Africa. The “Did you know?” litany quickly becomes precious. The details are not that interesting in themselves, and not sufficiently synthesized to be meaningful. The same factoid about leopard tree iguanas is repeated seven pages apart. A significant amount of information comes from Bitch by Lucy Cooke, which I would recommend instead.
As hybrid scientific memoirs of motherhood go, Lucy Jones’s Matrescence can’t be beat. For its social and political engagement, Jennifer Case’s We Are Animals is a valuable companion. Jukes’s offering pales by comparison because her story – not having the delivery she wanted, struggling to connect with her baby, her relationship with the father falling apart – is all too common, and she doesn’t have the scientific bona fides for readers to accept her as a valid source of zoological facts.
I would make an exception, though, for the central chapter, “Forever Milk,” which might be condensed and published in a big-name newspaper as a Rachel Carson-like exposé about endocrine disruptors and forever chemicals. Like any mother, Jukes wants nothing more than to protect her daughter, but how can she when household products (waterproof clothing, non-stick pans, cleaning sprays) contain toxic chemicals and her breastmilk is sure to be contaminated? Add in microplastics and the situation is bleak. We don’t know singly, let alone collectively, what these pollutants are doing to species in the long term, but most likely they interfere with reproduction and alter behaviour. The central message of this chapter, and the book as a whole, is that animals are amazing but vulnerable. “What is this world if nowhere is separate – nowhere safe?” If you think about this stuff much, you can’t bear it. Yet it’s a truth we all have to live with. It’s a brave author who dares sit with the unthinkable.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
The long thematic chapters present Jukes’s experiences in parallel to those of other mothering creatures with pregnancy, birth, lactation, making a home (nesting) and enlisting the help of the community. Peppered throughout are trivia she shares with boyfriend, baby and readers. Such as that burying beetles lay eggs on a carcass so their babies feed on carrion from day one. That bonobo females attend births, acting as midwives for each other. That Madrid’s storks have started eating and lining their nests with what they find in landfill instead of migrating to Africa. The “Did you know?” litany quickly becomes precious. The details are not that interesting in themselves, and not sufficiently synthesized to be meaningful. The same factoid about leopard tree iguanas is repeated seven pages apart. A significant amount of information comes from Bitch by Lucy Cooke, which I would recommend instead.
As hybrid scientific memoirs of motherhood go, Lucy Jones’s Matrescence can’t be beat. For its social and political engagement, Jennifer Case’s We Are Animals is a valuable companion. Jukes’s offering pales by comparison because her story – not having the delivery she wanted, struggling to connect with her baby, her relationship with the father falling apart – is all too common, and she doesn’t have the scientific bona fides for readers to accept her as a valid source of zoological facts.
I would make an exception, though, for the central chapter, “Forever Milk,” which might be condensed and published in a big-name newspaper as a Rachel Carson-like exposé about endocrine disruptors and forever chemicals. Like any mother, Jukes wants nothing more than to protect her daughter, but how can she when household products (waterproof clothing, non-stick pans, cleaning sprays) contain toxic chemicals and her breastmilk is sure to be contaminated? Add in microplastics and the situation is bleak. We don’t know singly, let alone collectively, what these pollutants are doing to species in the long term, but most likely they interfere with reproduction and alter behaviour. The central message of this chapter, and the book as a whole, is that animals are amazing but vulnerable. “What is this world if nowhere is separate – nowhere safe?” If you think about this stuff much, you can’t bear it. Yet it’s a truth we all have to live with. It’s a brave author who dares sit with the unthinkable.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
March 23, 2025
I was drawn to Helen Jukes's memoir Mother Animal because it promised to integrate her experience of pregnancy and early motherhood with scientific anecdotes about what motherhood looks like in other species – ranging from bonobos to spiders to polar bears to burying beetles. And to be fair to Jukes, the first two carefully-crafted sections of this book, which cover her pregnancy and the birth of her daughter, do that very well. Jukes is good at conveying the displacement and confusion she feels as she tries to tie together her emotions for her new baby and the stories she's been told about motherhood. 'Are you feeling connected with the baby?' the midwife asks when she's heavily pregnant. 'The question seemed mildly ridiculous. How to experience a connection with a being that was not yet separate from me?' After the birth, she feels 'weird, ecstatic, wired... My boyfriend had wheeled the baby off down the corridor to let me rest, but without her there beside me I felt even weirder than before. Was this my instinct, kicking in?'
I especially liked reading about 'alloparental' behaviour in species that separate maternal behaviour from biological motherhood - something I've been thinking about a lot recently is how we assume that 'maternal' people want to be mothers, and are good ones, whereas 'non-maternal' people are not - or that you can only be 'maternal' if you have your own children. But as Jukes describes, baby bats are raised in all-female roosts that include those who have never themselves given birth, with alloparents supervising children when their mothers hunt. Many species nurse other individuals' offspring and some, like dwarf mongooses and beluga whales, can lactate to feed babies even when they are not parents themselves.
Unfortunately, after the first two sections, Mother Animal takes a strange turn that seems to have been fed by Jukes's own obsessions during her baby's early life, info-dumping a lot of undigested facts about microplastics, 'forever chemicals' and the ways in which pollution lingers in our porous bodies, especially in supposedly 'pure' substances like breast milk. It's repetitive and frankly, not very interesting (Naomi Booth makes the same point much more briefly and powerfully in her novel Sealed ). Jukes's limited scientific expertise is clear so we just get lumps of facts that seem to have little to do with what this memoir was meant to be about and read a bit like a Wikipedia entry ('Both DDT and PCBs belong to the "dirty dozen", a group of highly toxic persistent chemicals that were either banned or heavily restricted at the Stockholm Convention in 2001'). By this, I'm not suggesting that Jukes didn't research these facts herself. Indeed, the amount of research she did seems to be what's overwhelming the more intimate, individual parts of this book.
I received a free proof copy of this book from the publisher for review.
I especially liked reading about 'alloparental' behaviour in species that separate maternal behaviour from biological motherhood - something I've been thinking about a lot recently is how we assume that 'maternal' people want to be mothers, and are good ones, whereas 'non-maternal' people are not - or that you can only be 'maternal' if you have your own children. But as Jukes describes, baby bats are raised in all-female roosts that include those who have never themselves given birth, with alloparents supervising children when their mothers hunt. Many species nurse other individuals' offspring and some, like dwarf mongooses and beluga whales, can lactate to feed babies even when they are not parents themselves.
Unfortunately, after the first two sections, Mother Animal takes a strange turn that seems to have been fed by Jukes's own obsessions during her baby's early life, info-dumping a lot of undigested facts about microplastics, 'forever chemicals' and the ways in which pollution lingers in our porous bodies, especially in supposedly 'pure' substances like breast milk. It's repetitive and frankly, not very interesting (Naomi Booth makes the same point much more briefly and powerfully in her novel Sealed ). Jukes's limited scientific expertise is clear so we just get lumps of facts that seem to have little to do with what this memoir was meant to be about and read a bit like a Wikipedia entry ('Both DDT and PCBs belong to the "dirty dozen", a group of highly toxic persistent chemicals that were either banned or heavily restricted at the Stockholm Convention in 2001'). By this, I'm not suggesting that Jukes didn't research these facts herself. Indeed, the amount of research she did seems to be what's overwhelming the more intimate, individual parts of this book.
I received a free proof copy of this book from the publisher for review.
February 13, 2025
Upon discovering she was pregnant in a hot surreal summer, Helen's way of processing what was happening to her body was to consider baselines and wonders from the natural world. Midwifery guidance, hospital environments, blanket expectstions to breastfeed, wear neutral colours and display a happy family unit challenged the intuitive appreciation she had for mothers within the animal world.
Her own pregnancy and parenting challenges were intensified and complicated by her growing understanding of pollution and environmental crisis. Her own perception of self as separate from the animal world and surrounding environment shifts. She discovers the countless microbial/psychological/social ways that the environment interacts with our own bodies and considers how we can live with this awareness.
I loved the countless examples of animals mothering, sharing parenting, adapting to shifting environments etc. There is wonder and inspiration in them all.
Her own pregnancy and parenting challenges were intensified and complicated by her growing understanding of pollution and environmental crisis. Her own perception of self as separate from the animal world and surrounding environment shifts. She discovers the countless microbial/psychological/social ways that the environment interacts with our own bodies and considers how we can live with this awareness.
I loved the countless examples of animals mothering, sharing parenting, adapting to shifting environments etc. There is wonder and inspiration in them all.
March 13, 2025
Confession: I don't read a lot of non-fiction novels. I'm big into horror mostly but picked up this book because, as a mother myself, I thought it would be interesting to learn about how non-human animal mothers care for their young. What I was not prepared for was one of the most frightening books I've read in a while.
Mother Animal is part personal story, part fun animal facts and part (a very large part) terrifying and informative read about how we, as human-animals, have impacted the planet to the point where we have disrupted the lives of other mothers around the world. From the sterilization of whales to the poisoning of breast milk to the influence of nesting materials, this book shook up every notion of what I had perceived to be "natural".
Mother Animal is a quick read that will stay with me for a long time.
Mother Animal is part personal story, part fun animal facts and part (a very large part) terrifying and informative read about how we, as human-animals, have impacted the planet to the point where we have disrupted the lives of other mothers around the world. From the sterilization of whales to the poisoning of breast milk to the influence of nesting materials, this book shook up every notion of what I had perceived to be "natural".
Mother Animal is a quick read that will stay with me for a long time.
January 24, 2025
I've previously read and enjoyed A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes. I. really enjoy the way she melds writing about the natural world with memoir and events going on in the human world. I love that she reminds us firmly that we are part of the animal world and that we are connected to it in much wider and more complex ways than we imagine.
Here in Mother Animal, she does the same kind of work but unpacks her feelings about pregnancy and the first years of being a mother. As she finds herself increasingly alienated from other people and sometimes the wildness of her own body, she is drawn to research what mothering looks like across the vast complexities of nature. I really loved this although the sections where she starts exploring porousness and the effects of pollutants and toxins on mothers and babies was really upsetting stuff.
This is not a cutesy look at becoming a mum. This is difficult, painful and tender in every sense of the word. It's quite stunning in lots of ways. I finished it with the breathlessness I usually reserve for thrillers.
Here in Mother Animal, she does the same kind of work but unpacks her feelings about pregnancy and the first years of being a mother. As she finds herself increasingly alienated from other people and sometimes the wildness of her own body, she is drawn to research what mothering looks like across the vast complexities of nature. I really loved this although the sections where she starts exploring porousness and the effects of pollutants and toxins on mothers and babies was really upsetting stuff.
This is not a cutesy look at becoming a mum. This is difficult, painful and tender in every sense of the word. It's quite stunning in lots of ways. I finished it with the breathlessness I usually reserve for thrillers.
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May 18, 2025I was really enjoying the story of human mothering juxtaposed with little stories of nonhuman animal mothering until the time came for the writer-mother to breastfeed. She runs into some difficulty with it and opts for formula milk that is made from the milk of cow mothers. This is where I felt that it was extremely unfair how the cows and the dairy industry didn’t get fair consideration or an explanation, however brief.
This book absolutely did not have the scope to discuss adult humans consuming milk, but technically it wasn’t the dairy that saved Helen Juke’s baby: it was the nutrients that our food industry is now capable of producing for our children without torturing animals. I felt like Jukes was saying it’s OK to use animals to substitute human breastfeeding because other living organisms like bacteria, yeasts and viruses are involved in breastfeeding anyway.
I get it, by the fourth chapter it was clear that the writer had other priorities. The real topic and worry for Jukes is the fact that we’re polluting ourselves and everything and everyone around us with forever chemicals, EDCs and microplastics. The situation really is dire. She writes: “But it is that bad. It is so bad that a person must build imaginary walls around themselves in order to live.” I feel we’re doing the same when ignoring the suffering of animal mothers in the animal industries.
The more I read, the more I thought about the wide gap in our heads between farmed animals and all the other animals. The inspiring and puzzling stories are always about wild animals. The farm animals are in a box of their own, not subjects of awe and there are so many of them - they’re hardly going extinct. It made me sad that the cow mother didn’t get the nod she deserves.
What I did love about the book is how honest Helen Jukes is about her experience, her relationship with her partner. It’s so important that experiences with this level of honesty are shared so that other women can make informed decisions whether they want to bring a child into this completely messed up world while sacrificing more than I can comprehend.
This book absolutely did not have the scope to discuss adult humans consuming milk, but technically it wasn’t the dairy that saved Helen Juke’s baby: it was the nutrients that our food industry is now capable of producing for our children without torturing animals. I felt like Jukes was saying it’s OK to use animals to substitute human breastfeeding because other living organisms like bacteria, yeasts and viruses are involved in breastfeeding anyway.
I get it, by the fourth chapter it was clear that the writer had other priorities. The real topic and worry for Jukes is the fact that we’re polluting ourselves and everything and everyone around us with forever chemicals, EDCs and microplastics. The situation really is dire. She writes: “But it is that bad. It is so bad that a person must build imaginary walls around themselves in order to live.” I feel we’re doing the same when ignoring the suffering of animal mothers in the animal industries.
The more I read, the more I thought about the wide gap in our heads between farmed animals and all the other animals. The inspiring and puzzling stories are always about wild animals. The farm animals are in a box of their own, not subjects of awe and there are so many of them - they’re hardly going extinct. It made me sad that the cow mother didn’t get the nod she deserves.
What I did love about the book is how honest Helen Jukes is about her experience, her relationship with her partner. It’s so important that experiences with this level of honesty are shared so that other women can make informed decisions whether they want to bring a child into this completely messed up world while sacrificing more than I can comprehend.
March 2, 2025
A meditation on motherhood illustrating the similarities and differences between humans and other species in the animal kingdom. A bit weird and creepy, a bit heavy and emotional, I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.
February 4, 2025
I’m not a mother, so the memoir part of this book didn’t appeal too much to me (other than making me happy that I decided to remain childless). I read this for the non-human animals and I wasn’t disappointed. Jukes is not a scientist, she just started researching motherhood in animals while she was pregnant. The facts are anecdotal and disorganized and a pleasure to read. “Did you know?” is also my refrain while talking to my loved ones, and nothing fazes me. The parts about human pregnancy were equally fascinating. This is a short, poignant and engrossing account of the author’s thoughts and life experiences. Not my usual fare but I enjoyed it a lot.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Elliott & Thompson.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Elliott & Thompson.
February 26, 2025
A perfect book, read in two quick bursts. A book that made me stop and take photos of passages over and over. A book that kept me entranced all the way through.
Mother Animal is exceptional. Part nature (and nurture) writing, part memoir, full of science and facts and emotional power, reading it is an all encompassing experience. I challenge you to think about anything other than Jukes’ rallying cry when reading it.
Jukes delves into her subject matter with the eye of a scientist and the pen of a poet. Her research is so thorough (and fascinating), whilst never distracting from the emotional heart at the centre of the novel. To me, this book is a call to action, and a plea to care – about the environment, about other animals and our own selves.
Mother Animal is exceptional. Part nature (and nurture) writing, part memoir, full of science and facts and emotional power, reading it is an all encompassing experience. I challenge you to think about anything other than Jukes’ rallying cry when reading it.
Jukes delves into her subject matter with the eye of a scientist and the pen of a poet. Her research is so thorough (and fascinating), whilst never distracting from the emotional heart at the centre of the novel. To me, this book is a call to action, and a plea to care – about the environment, about other animals and our own selves.
November 18, 2025
Lots of real power and beauty, but frustratingly short and disorganised (I know, I know, that's part of the parenting experience, but Jukes doesn't quite succeed in capturing that feeling in an interesting way, I think). There's some extraordinary moments, and the first two chapters are particularly strong - maybe I found the stuff on chemicals in breastmilk too bleak and switched off a bit after that because I'm too much of a coward, but I also think it just got a bit repetitive. Very very worth reading overall, but with caveats.
February 19, 2025
Made me more depressed about the state of the world but that’s a testament to the power of Helen Jukes’ writing
February 13, 2025
This is an important book for the time we are living in. Written with a lyrical cadence and depth of inquiry, clearly motivated by love. I appreciate Jukes' curious mind and her courage.
July 15, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This one seemed right up my alley, a memoir about motherhood right as my sister was about to have her baby combined with facts about mothers in the animal world. I liked it but in the end did not love it as I had anticipated.
The author takes you through the stages of her pregnancy and through birth and breastfeeding her baby, with interesting commentary on how she felt during each stage. She took a lot of comfort from nature when trying to understand her changing body and figure out how to "feel like" a mother, and it was delightful to read the various facts she discovered.
I had expected this to be more of a science focused book with parallels to the stages of the author's pregnancy, but it was very much a memoir and the animal facts brought in were not really organized. I would recommend this if you are searching for a memoir about pregnancy and childbirth but not if you are looking for a book about animals. Overall pretty good and a quick read as well.
This one seemed right up my alley, a memoir about motherhood right as my sister was about to have her baby combined with facts about mothers in the animal world. I liked it but in the end did not love it as I had anticipated.
The author takes you through the stages of her pregnancy and through birth and breastfeeding her baby, with interesting commentary on how she felt during each stage. She took a lot of comfort from nature when trying to understand her changing body and figure out how to "feel like" a mother, and it was delightful to read the various facts she discovered.
I had expected this to be more of a science focused book with parallels to the stages of the author's pregnancy, but it was very much a memoir and the animal facts brought in were not really organized. I would recommend this if you are searching for a memoir about pregnancy and childbirth but not if you are looking for a book about animals. Overall pretty good and a quick read as well.
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