[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...

I cannot recall any animal book which I would recommend to as wide an audience as [Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds, an] unusual and exciting story of a lioness raised among people and then retrained to return to her own kind in the wilds of Kenya…. It has drama and sadness, but above all novelty and happiness. Aside from its pleasurable reading it has much to offer to the animal behaviorist also—much that is thought-provoking and significant. (pp. 2445-46) Walter Necker, ...