Mother to Tigers [hc]
Written by George Ella Lyon [Kentucky] & illustrated by Peter Catalanotto
You are a Bengal tiger cub, one of three- Dacca, Rajpur, Raniganj- abandoned by your mother. You are so cold and thin that someone with kind hands puts you on a heating pad and sits by you for hours, moistening your mouth with milk. When you give a weak cry and look up, there is a human face almost crying too. Your new mother is Helen Delaney Martini, who has already raised a lion cub in her New York apartment. Tigers in the bathtub will be no problem for her and her husband, Fred.
This remarkable book tells the story of Helen Martini, founder of the Bronx Zoo's animal nursery in 1944 and its first woman zookeeper. 32 pages
"Arresting art illuminates Lyon and Catalanotto's... tribute to Helen Martini, founder of the Bronx Zoo's animal nursery." -Publishers Weekly (Ages 5-8)
"This handsome and intriguing real-life story will be savored as independent and shared reading and useful as simple nonfiction for varied classroom purposes." -School Library Journal (Grades 1-3)
March 1, 2003
AR Level=4.0; Lexile Level=780 AD Adult-Directed Text
