West with Giraffes: A Novel

If you enjoy William Kent Kruger or Amor Towles, you will also enjoy reading this book. The protagonist is a young boy, orphaned by the dust bowls of the 1930s. It is the story of his trip cross country to deliver two giraffes to the new San Diego zoo and the variety of folks he encounters. Excellent read.

June's book club read was West with Giraffes. The book begins with our main character in 2025 finding out giraffes were going extinct, and his death is nearing so he has an urgency to tell the world about his experience with the first two giraffes to come to the US. The book focuses on 1938 and the actual trek across the country with the giraffes. It is based on a true event - Two giraffes who arrive by boat in New York during a rare hurricane. The giraffe pair ("wild girl" and "boy") survive the catastrophic event with Wild Girl sustaining an injury. Next stop for the giraffes is the cross country road trip to the San Diego zoo. Enter 17 year old Woody Nichol, a down on his luck survivor of the the dust bowl in Texas, who traveled to NY seeking a new life and hoping to put his bad past behind him. Helping save the giraffes, he desperately wants to go with them to "Californy" where he knows he can start a new life. This means lying to the Old Man Riley Jones, who is the zookeeper entrusted to drive the giraffes safely to their new home, so he claims he can drive a truck safely to replace the previous disposed driver. (He ends up learning fast and being a safe driver though, just unlicensed) I really enjoyed the story, which takes place during the seven (?) day drive from NY to San Diego but also visits the future as Woody writes his story to pass on to someone before he dies. The connections between the main characters and the giraffes was so poignant, and emphasized how much animals love and accept people for what they are. There were some truly evil people in the book who were cruel to animals and sought to take the giraffes, but these parts were interspersed with the driving hours and the good people and the public who genuinely were fascinated and intrigued by the cargo, including the mysterious Red and her Packard. I found it a bit frustrating that all the characters lied in the book, but in the end we find they had good reasons and they all grew from this meaningful experience in their life. I wish the author had included the photos of trucks and giraffes from the time period. I ended up googling them to get a better picture of how the giraffes were transported across country- I strongly recommend doing this!. I also had to find out if giraffes are extinct, or endangered. According to enviromentalbuddy.com, "Technically, yes. Officially, not so much…Giraffes are in grave danger. The population has waned 40% in 30 years, and there are now roughly 68,000 left in the wild. What is left of the herds are unbalanced and face quite a lot of threats, from poaching to habitat loss. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the paramount standard for evaluating endangerment, has found that giraffes are “vulnerable,” indicating that they are under a “high risk” of extinction in the wild. And for some of the nine sub-species, this threat is looming. Sadly they are at dangerously low levels" and they are trying to classify them as endangered to protect the remaining species. So sad... I can't imagine their purr permanently gone from this earth. This was an excellent book on the relationships between people and animals, how much they can help people heal, and how some people will never understand animals and the love and affection that animals can bring to our lives. Also emphasized is the friendships among people. This was an excellent selection for book club , with plenty of good discussion questions available online. Again, just google it... This would make an excellent movie, imo. People who enjoyed Water for Elephants, The One and Only Ivan, The Night Circus and How the Penguins Saved Veronica will adore the witty, charming, and heartwarming West with Giraffes

Ten out of ten! Loved by all my book club friends.

Inspired by true events, this story starts with an old man, Woodrow Wilson Nickel, who is as old as "a century and a nickel". He suddenly feels that time is running out and feels desperate to put to paper the story that he believes helped him to be the best version of himself. A story about the truest friends he ever made. Friends that saved him in every way. He wants to write this story for them as much as for himself. Like many great stories, this one starts with a chance encounter. It is set in 1938, during the Great Depression and as WWII looms. The chance encounter is between a 17 year old floundering young man from the Dust Bowl, a zookeeper and true animal lover "Old Man", a beautiful red head with big dreams and a sick heart and two young giraffes that survive a journey across the ocean, against all odds. What follows is an epic adventure where these five beings become forever entwined. Woody, Old Man and Red form a deep connection with these two giraffes, and are drawn to them for different reasons. They also form a deep connection to each other. They make it their mission to safely move these creatures and record the cross-country journey to their final destination, the San Diego Zoo. This journey is about saving them, as much as it is about saving the giraffes. The stories we live and tell and the people (and creatures) we meet along the way are what molds us into the best versions of ourselves. These stories are the truest gifts that we can pass down and frequently tell us about the best versions of people. It is in stories that we can live forever and where some of life's greatest lessons are found.

Go West (With Giraffes), Young Man Great book club pick! Woody is a 17-year-old Dust Bowl survivor who flees from his home after a tragedy. He jumps on trains until he arrives at NYC, where he encounters two giraffes at the dock, headed for the San Diego Zoo. Though the African giraffes made it through an Atlantic hurricane, their journey across the US might be even more perilous, especially due to the injury to the female giraffe's leg. Perhaps identifying with fellow survivors from a storm, Woody becomes intrigued by the majestic one-ton animals. He steals a motorcycle and follows along behind the trailer, eventually worming his way into serving as the driver. Another car also follows the group, its driver a plucky redhead who claims she's a photojournalist for Time magazine. Apparently the giraffes' adventure is based on true events in 1938, and I enjoyed learning some aspects of their history. My favorite part was the bond between Woody and the giraffes, who he fondly names Girl and Boy. The story is told through flashbacks from 105-year-old Woody, and narrator Danny Campbell's raspy voice fit the character. As Woody explains: "Time plays its cruelest trick without you knowing it. Even the memories the body holds most dear become like scratchy old phonograph records played too long, fading in and out, with little sound and even less fury." This book fell a little short of five stars for me because Woody's family trauma seemed weird and unrealistic. I felt disappointed after such a big buildup. I also didn't connect fully with the emotion of the story until the last chapter, which brought on tears.