Writing a song that touches the hearts of millions is hard enough.Writing a warm and fuzzy ballad about one of nature's most despised animals _ the rat _ seemed to be an impossible task, even for Oscar-winning composer Don Black.Black, whose credits include many of...

James Akedi's plate is piled with fragrant strips of nyama choma, the entree of choice in much of East Africa whose name means, quite simply, "roasted meat."Akedi can only hope he's getting what he paid for: two pounds of government-inspected, disease-free beef. Kenyan authorities say...

For the farmers of Kenya, life is a constant contest for grass and water between their herds and the wild animals that share the land. Now they are waging a new struggle, this time against the international animal welfare lobby.Pleading poverty, the farmers want to...

For the farmers of Kenya, life is a constant contest for grass and water between their herds and the wild animals that share the land.Now they are waging a new struggle, this time against the international animal welfare lobby. Pleading poverty, the farmers want to...

[Born Free is] a unique and illuminating study in animal psychology. (p. 9) [Elsa's history in Born Free] provides a record of absorbing interest depicting the gradual development of a controlled character which few would have credited as possible in the case of an animal potentially as dangerous as any in the world. That such a creature when in a highly excited state, with her blood up after a long struggle with a bull buffalo, and while still on top of it, should have permitted a man to walk up to ...

[Born Free] was such a delight that it is disheartening to have to report that its sequel, Living Free …, is no better than most sequels. The story of Elsa's cubs and her life in the wilds is told by Mrs. Adamson with the same simplicity and affection that characterized the first book …, but circumstance has introduced an element of fraud. While the orphaned Elsa was being raised by the Adamsons, and later trained to live as a wild lion, the presence of her human companions was right an...

The reader [of Born Free] gets a feeling for nature in Kenya, and, in slight degree, for human life there as well. It is too bad, tho, that the author does not go into more detail about the training of the lioness. There are instances where Mrs. Adamson speaks of using a stick to teach Elsa the meaning of "No," but usually she tells what her pet did without giving the background leading up to Elsa's achievements. Nor does she dramatize several events that must have been exciting, thereb...