Water for Elephants

What a perfect day to finish an excellent book! It is the kids' first day back to school and I decided to take the day off and sit on the couch and read. To top it off we got a mid-day deluge, complete with thunder, that just made sitting on the couch reading even sweeter! So often I remember where I was when I finished a good book, at a B&B in Raleigh on a cold winter day when I finished Poisonwood Bible, on the Dornau's couch during Christmas vacation when I finished The Sparrow, on a train to Charlotte for a field trip I was chaperoning when I finished Plain Truth and sitting in my parents' living room at the age of 16 with no one home while suffering with mono when I finished Salem's Lot which left me believing absolutely in vampires! I think I will remember this day and this memorable book.

Water for Elephants is not a book that would have appealed to me if I had been told that it is about people in a traveling circus during the Depression, but it is so much more! It has been highly touted by critics and prominently displayed in bookstores. I happened to see it in the most charming bookstore, McIntyre's in Fearrington Village in NC where I was browsing after lunch with my friend Shirley. It turns out that this is a book of which Shirley would approve because it does bring to light the horrific ways that animals were (are?) treated by traveling circuses (for more information on Shirley's dedication to animals, please visit Shirley's Animal Ministry). Since I am innately unable to leave a bookstore without buying something, I picked it up.

Water for Elephants was painstakingly researched by auhor, Sara Gruen, who was initially called to the subject when she saw a book of photos from the early days of traveling circuses. The story is told in flashback as the main character, Jacob who is either 90 or 93 he's not quite sure, lives in a nursing home anticipating the Sunday visit of one of his relatives who will be taking him to the circus that has set up nearby. Jacob sort of happens on the circus and joins as his personal situation changes and he is left with nowhere else to go. The colorful cast of characters is beautifully drawn with words, leaving me with vivid pictures of them in my brain. There are not so many characters that one can't keep track and they all play integral roles in the development of the plot.

The story has a complexity in the interplay of the characters along with the description of the world of the circus, but is told with simple, beautiful language and fluid phrasing that kept me reading on even as my eyes were drooping at 11:30 the night after I was up at 3:30 a.m. cleaning up dog poop (I will spare you any HTML links on THIS topic!). What does that have to do with the book? Nothing, just want to make sure you remember who is writing this blog!

I would also like you to know that if you visit Sara Gruen's Website you will see that a portion of the royalties from her books go to support animal charities! What a wonderful thing!

So read it...and for those whose children, like mine, are back to school....isn't it great!!!!