Play Book Tag discussion

West with Giraffes was inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.

A healthcare worker in a long-term VA care facility is tasked with gathering the deceased’s possessions from his room. She opens an old army footlocker where she finds a porcelain giraffe souvenir from the San Diego Zoo and a stack of writing tablets. She begins to read them and discovers a wonderful story.

It begins in 1938, when an enormous hurricane hits New York, killing people and upending ships. When workers clear the destruction they discover two giraffes that were being transported and they do everything they can to bring them to land. Soon a man arrives to drive them to their new home in the San Diego Zoo.

This group of animals and people make an interesting sight as they travel across the depression-era American south. Along the way, they encounter a mix of treacherous, warmhearted, and down on their luck characters.

The author pulls in American history and the factors facing America at that time: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the Jim Crow era, and looming threat of a second World War. The author does a wonderful job of weaving real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted bad guys.

The giraffes! I thought they stole the show, and the main characters are at their best when they are interacting with them. Periodically the story was interrupted by 105 year old Woody writing the story. I felt like that disrupted the story and it should have been handled in the prologue and epilogue only. Nevertheless, it was a delightful book and I'll never look at giraffes the same way.