Taken in May of 2016 in Zambia
This isn’t a good shot. It’s washed out and the composition is poor.
And yet, when I saw it I couldn’t help but imagine a dialogue between these two lionesses. If it triggers that reaction for you, it’s worth posting it.
Taken in the Summer of 2016 on the road to Pangong Tso
Taken in October of 2016 at the Bengaluru Airport
The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The story arc of “The Enormous Crocodile” is a familiar one. It’s a variation on a theme seen in “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Three Little Pigs” to name a couple of well-known examples. First, there is a bad guy who wants to eat some helpless and / or unwitting victims. In this case, the enormous crocodile is the gluttonous cad—rather than a wolf–and the helpless victims are the local children. Second, the villain is thwarted at the last possible moment.
While it’s a tale that’s been told many times in many ways, Dahl does a good job adding his own imprint to it. An important element of the story is that the crocodile angers, alienates, and attacks several of the other jungle creatures on his way into town to find a victim or victims. Because of this, these animals conspire to thwart the crocodile’s clever plots, and this ultimately contributes to his downfall. It’s with the crocodile’s clever plots that Dahl most fully engages the imagination. The croc uses various disguises to try to lure children to within snapping distance.
It should be pointed out that the illustrations by Quentin Blake are as crucial as Dahl’s words. The color drawings really bring the book to life, and serve to make feasible the clever plots of the crocodile. (e.g. When the croc scoops up coconuts and fronds and stands on his tail in mimicry of a coconut tree, it’s the illustration that makes this seem believable—not to mention capable of being visualized by a small child.)
If you’re looking for a short young children’s story that can be read in 15 minutes or so, this is a good one.
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Just So Stories” is a collection of 12 children’s stories. The theme that runs through the dozen stories is that they are mostly tall-tale answers for questions that children might have. All but two of them focus on animals and nature, and the two divergent stories deal with the origin of written language. Since it’s such a small collection and the titles tend to synopsize the stories, I’ll include the table of contents below, which may give one greater insight into the nature of the stories.
1.) How the Whale Got his Throat
2.) How the Camel Got his Hump
3.) How the Rhinoceros Got his Skin
4.) How the Leopard Got his Spots
5.) The Elephant’s Child
6.) The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo
7.) The Beginning of the Armadillos
8.) How the First Letter Was Made
9.) How the Alphabet Was Made
10.) The Crab that Played with the Sea
11.) The Cat that Walked by Himself
12.) The Butterfly that Stamped
The edition that I have (i.e. 2006 Scholastic Junior Classics Edition) has a number of black-and-white graphics (block print and line drawn style)—one or two per story. Given the genre, I imagine most editions have some kind of pictures, but your edition’s graphics may vary. A number of the stories include short poetry—usually at the end. The poetry is part of the original Kipling product and so are likely included in all unabridged editions.
I’d recommend this book for those looking for short stories that are relatable to young children.
Body Heat: Temperature and Life on Earth by Mark S. Blumberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked up this book for an odd–and potentially disconcerting–reason. I sweat when I work out. I know that everyone sweats while active, but for me it’s preternatural. It’s at a level that has the potential to be a superpower, if I had any control of it. I’ve finished muaythai sessions with the ring floor looking like it’d rained inside—granted Thailand takes humidity to its heights, but still. I was hoping to gain some insight into what this anomaly was all about. After reading the book, I can’t say I have any greater insight on the issue. However, having lived in the tropics for over three years now, I’ve recently begun to notice that my level of sweating seems normal—at least within a range acceptable for our species.
There are nine chapters. The first examines the basics of heat. While the examples are zoological, the substance is largely what one would study in an introductory physics class—sans the math. Chapter 2 dips more into the biology, considering the various ways in which organisms achieve an ideal temperature. The third chapter explores the role that temperature plays in impregnation, gestation, and genetic information transfer.
Chapter 4 explains how various creatures work internally to create a comfortable temperature. It’s related to chapter 2, but the second chapter deals more with external regulation, i.e. animals’ interaction with their environments. Besides explaining the human need to control the brain’s temperature, chapter 4 explores how birds who keep their feet in chilly water manage to keep from getting hypothermia. In the next chapter, Blumberg considers various ways in which animals fight the cold. There’s an extended discussion of Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT)–a fat that is particularly useful in generating heat–that was interesting.
Chapter 6 raises an intriguing question: should one take fever reducer when one develops a fever? Obviously, a fever can become so high that one needs to combat it, but here we’re talking about a fever of a level that won’t cause any long-term harm. Chapter 7 discusses a range of heat related topics including the connection between spiciness and the feeling of heat and the evolution of language related to heat, but the chapter is mostly about the thermal dimension of sex.
Chapter 8 is about how our body regulates fat so that it can be used both as an energy reserve and as insulation, and what can go wrong with the process. The final chapter addresses the thermal dimension of sleep. If you’ve ever woken up soaked in sweat or chilled, it may have occurred to you that our thermal regulation doesn’t work as usual through sleep.
There is a point in the Introduction that reads as though the author is calling Tibetan Buddhists monks charlatans, and that seems both harsh and offensive. However, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he used an example in unfortunate juxtaposition to his charlatan comment—which is well taken. He’s referring to monks who wrap themselves in wet sheets in subfreezing conditions. His point is that it’s not a suspension of the laws of physics that the monks don’t end up with hypothermia—true enough. The monks’ point is likely that it’s a tremendous challenge to be able to maintain a tranquil mind under such conditions, which I would argue is true as well.
There are only a few graphics, and they consist of tables, line drawings, and photos. There is an extensive bibliography that is organized by chapter.
The Kindle version of the book that I have has some formatting irregularities. However, they didn’t really detract from the reading experience, and will probably be corrected in newer editions. [But it wasn’t an ARC, so the formatting should have been finalized.]
I found this book to be interesting, and I learned a lot from reading it. It’s an important topic, but for many it won’t be a subject that one thinks of learning about in isolation. If you are interested in finding out more about the many ways in which animals (humans included) are influenced by temperature, I’d recommend you give this book a look.
Taken in April of 2016 in Amritsar
Tiger Riding for Beginners 