A Walk in the Animal Kingdom: Essays on Animals Wild and Tame

by Jerry Dennis, Glenn Wolff (Illustrations)

ANIMALS ARE EVERYWHERE IN OUR LIVES. We follow them into the wild, we invite them into our homes, they inhabit our dreams, mythologies, folklores, and popular cultures. What is this powerful bond? Why are we so fascinated with animals of every kind? And why has our relationship with them always been riddled with such complexity and contradiction? A Walk in the Animal Kingdom explores the world of animals with the inquisitiveness, depth, and gentle humor that readers across the globe have come to expect from the acclaimed author-artist team of Jerry Dennis and Glenn Wolff. The book is an inquiry into animals of the world, their astonishing diversity and abundance; their mating habits, defensive strategies, and other behaviors; their extraordinary senses of sight, hearing, and smell. It is also an exploration of our profound connection with them, from the joys they inspire and the fears they arouse, to their prominence in our lives as pets, team mascots, and embodiments of wild nature—and the paradox that allows us to battle to protect certain species while ignoring others that are disappearing at a rate perhaps unequaled in the history of our planet. Like the previous collaborations of Dennis and Wolff, A Walk in the Animal Kingdom is certain to become a classic among books about nature—its wonders, its complexities, and our place in it. “This writer-artist team shines a bright and lovely light on nature.” — Los Angeles Times “Charming…informative…humorous…This wonderfully illustrated book will make heroes of parents and teachers, who will be able to explain nature's magic and the superstitions surrounding it." — El Paso Times "Vastly entertaining, valuable… Makes natural history so much fun the reader is sucked from paragraph to paragraph, page to page, chapter to chapter.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch “A perfect choice for adults and kids alike who want to discover more about how the world is put together… entertaining and fact-filled.” — Houston Post “As leaves fall and the sky becomes more noticeable, you’re likely to look towards the heavens and wonder at their mysteries…Author Jerry Dennis and illustrator Glenn Wolff address the questions with intelligence, wit and artistry.” — Atlanta Constitution "A delightful book, both readable and informative—like the best of Hal Borland and Edwin Way Teale…You've many hours of pleasure waiting with It's Raining Frogs and Fishes ." — Richmond Times-Dispatch "With text that mesmerizes, drawings that enchant…this book calls you to hold it open before you." — The Oakland Press

264 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2015

About the author

Jerry Dennis was born in Flint in 1954, and grew up in rural northern Michigan. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Louisville in 1981, after attending Northern Michigan University and Northwestern Michigan College.

As he began his writing career, he worked as a carpenter for five years. To date, he has written for many publications. Journalistic assignments sent him to Iceland, Chile, and extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Dennis married during this time to Gail. They currently live on the shores of Lake Michigan, not far from Traverse City.

Since 2000 he has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan's Bear River Writers Conference, where he teaches creative non-fiction and nature writing.

As of 2014, he is the author of ten books, his best known book is The Living Great Lakes, about his trip around the great lakes in a rickety ship. He was awarded a place on the Michigan Notable Books list for that book.

In 2014, in response to a pricing dispute between his publisher, MacMillan Press, and Amazon, Dennis set up his own publishing house, Big Maple Press, to produce books which will be sold only through independent booksellers.

His awards include: 2004 Michigan Notable Books, 2004 Sigurd Olsen Nature Writing Award, 2004 Great Lakes Culture Best Book Award Non-Fiction, 2004 The Stuart D. and Vernice M. Gross Award for Literature,
2003 Alumni Fellows Award, University of Louisville, College of Arts and Sciences,
1999 Michigan Author of the Year,
1993, 1996, 1998, and 2003 Best Book of the Year awarded by Outdoor Writers Association of America.

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read a couple of his earlier works many years ago and saw this book in a bookstore this past summer and picked it up. I didn’t seem to enjoy this book as much as I had his previous books. The material seemed “lighter fare” and parts seemed almost boring. I was a little disappointed, especially compared to nature writers like Bernd Heinrich which is what I have been reading more lately.

[Thomas Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

While sitting on the porch of a cabin up north, or by a fireplace, I sometimes want a read that entertains but does not consume me, the better to be able to stop and look around at a bird or throw another log on the fire. This book serves that purpose well. "A Walk in the Animal Kingdom" is the third in the Wonder of Nature series by the Michigan writer Jerry Dennis with incomparable, engaging illustrations by Glenn Wolff, also from the Traverse City region. The three books are collections of essays about the sky, including weather ("It's Raining Frogs and Fishes"), about water, including rivers, lakes and oceans ("The Bird in the Waterfall"), and now this volume about mammals, birds, fishes, insects and other beasts real and imagined. Perhaps its age (mine and the authors), but I enjoyed the first volume, more than the second, and the third less than the second. Still, Jerry Dennis is a wonderful, clear writer who brings both the scientific and the personal to his nature writing. I recommend all his works, but especially "The Living Great Lakes" and "The Windward Shore." The latter book opened us up to his more metaphysical thoughts, and it's probably this I miss from this collection.

The essays in "Animal Kingdom" are organized around themes like "Animal Behavior" and one story generally flows into the next, making it easy to read several of them in a row. But it is also easy to stop after any one of the essays. I sometimes wished they were a bit longer, again to make the connection from observation to meaning. My favorite essay in the book is "Two Lanes, No Shoulders" which well documents the joys for humans of traveling by car, bike,or foot the back roads of northern Michigan. It also reports on the danger these roads present to animals. This is a central theme of the book: the complex relationship between humans and the animals with which we share the natural world. "On A Hilltop Looking Back" presents the astounding, and depressing, tale of the passenger pigeon and its demise; this was my second favorite. I was disappointed that there was not an essay on wolves, as this animal engenders such strong, but opposing, attitudes from humans. An essay on coyotes approaches, but does not engage, the topic of hunting.

The book was published by Big Maple Press, a local enterprise dedicated to supporting independent bookstores. Hence this book and others do not get as much attention, like a cover shot, from the big internet entity that owns Goodreads. "We at Big Maple Press get along just fine with digital technology and megalithic online booksellers, it’s just that we would rather read real books and meet real people in real, brick-and-mortar stores. We’re sort of old-fashioned that way. We hope you’ll look for Big Maple Press titles, and that together we can support neighborhood independent bookstores and keep them at the cultural centers of our community." You can find a list of these booksellers that carry the Wonder of Nature series at http://bigmaplepress.com. Great writing, a true commitment to nature and the Great Lakes, and the opportunity to support locally-rooted businesses make it well worth reading this and other books by Jerry Dennis