Fall in Love with the “Zoo”
“The Zookeeper’s Wife” by Diane Ackerman is one of those great non-fiction books that reads like fiction. Set in Poland during WWII, the book is about the people who ran the Warsaw Zoo even as bombs fell upon their city and friends and family went underground to join the resistance. They lost the animals that they had loved and worked so hard to maintain for years. They saw the zoo collapse into ruin around them. And they heard terrible stories about the Jews of their beloved city being murdered by the thousands. They took action to save as many people as they could and the story is inspiring and painful. Teens can easily handle this book and it’s perfect if you’re trying to bring the true horror of WWII to life. It may even inspire them to look up some of the real life heroes that are named and learn more about them.
Posted in Historical Fiction, Non-Fiction