Title: The Zookeeper’s Wife
Author: Diane Ackerman
Genre/Format: Nonfiction/Audiobook
Year: 2008
Acquired: Library
Rating: 
Summary: Antonina Zabinski always had a way with animals, which made her the perfect women to marry a zookeeper. For many years, Antonina and her husband Jan tended the animals of the Warsaw Zoo with humor and passion. But when the Nazi’s took over Poland, their lives and the lives of the zoo animals are thrown into disarray.
Rather than wallow in the considerable losses caused by the Nazi occupation of Poland, the Zabinski’s fight back, using the zoo and their chaotic home to help Polish Jews escape the Warsaw ghetto and Nazi persecution.
Book Review: The thing I like best about this book was the way Ackerman took one character and one story and used that story to tell a story that was much bigger. Antonina Zabinski was just one Polish woman working against the Nazi regime, but her story lends itself to a broader exploration of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the Polish resistance.
This is a nonfiction book that I think people who love fiction would enjoy a lot — Ackerman isn’t dry at all and tells this story with the same level of character, dialogue, and description I expect in any work of fiction. And it’s a really great story — I don’t know that you could make up a story that was this compelling.
Audio Review: The narrator of this book, Suzanne Toren, was excellent. She had this beautiful way of saying “Antonina” that made me smile every time she said it. The book lends itself to audio quite well. The plot moves along following a timeline, so that makes it easy to follow. And Ackerman does a good job of bringing the reader back to the main story after each diversion from that plot. Overall, it was an easy book to listen to and I enjoyed it (despite my overall lack of yelling to myself in my car as I listened).
Other Reviews: Caribousmom; Fyrefly’s Book Blog; Devourer of Books; Both Eyes Books Blog;
If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!
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This sounds really good – just reading the summary brought tears to my eyes. People are so brave.
Jenny: Absolutely. The parts where the zoo is being destroyed were awful to listen to.Anything with WWII is hard to read, but it’s inspiring to see people taking action against what they see is wrong with the world.
The book sounds wonderful and sounds like it lends itself to the audio very well!
Kathy: Yeah, it did. The structure was chronological, so that helped keep things moving forward so it wasn’t confusing.
I enjoyed this book and rated it about the same as you did. I did feel certain parts were way too detailed and wordy. Still a very good book though. GREAT REVIEW!
diane: Yeah, some parts were a little wordy. I got distracted during some of the history sections, but never enough to stop reading or feel like I didn’t know what was happening.
I’ve picked this up at the library so many times, but for whatever reason, never checked it out. I think I might have to change that!
Melissa: You should try it, I enjoyed it a lot! I’m sure it would be a pretty quick read.
I’ve had this on the tbr list for a while but then I read a few less than glowing reviews and kind of pushed it down the list. Now I’m happy to move it back up.
Lisa: Yay, good! I can see some critiques of it being a little long or a little wordy, but overall I found it quite compelling.
I was so excited to see this review in my Google Reader; I just checked this book out of the library for some holiday break reading. I’m really looking forward to it. Thanks for the review.
A Bookshelf Monstrosity: Yay! I think it’ll be a good holiday book (except for all the sad WWII stuff). But overall it’s inspiring, which is good for the holidays.
Very much want to read this, but I didn’t know if it might be overly sentimental?
Jodie: I didn’t feel like it was too sentimental. There is a lot of bad stuff that happens, but the book tries not to dwell on them too much. The book certainly isn’t rosy or tries to cover up that stuff either. Antonina is a mother, so there are parts where she talks about her son and the impacts of the war on him that might be emotional.
I’ve been looking forward to reading this book. It sounds all the more amazing because it’s a true story. I’ve read so many books (in my teen years) about people being hidden in others’ houses during that time, but in a zoo? How incredible.
Jeane: I love really great books that are also true stories. There’s something about the truth that makes it impact me even more. I don’t usually read WWII books, but the zoo is the part that made me interested — it touches on a lot of those themes, but looks at them from a new perspective.
Ooh, this one sounds interesting- I love juxtaposition of a storyline into the grander scheme of things. Excellent stuff.
Aarti: Yup, me too. Finding a character to tell a bigger story is awesome.
I really want to read this. I had it out from the library, but ran out of time. I will have to try again!
Kailana: Yes, try again!
This sounds like a good read. I’ve read one of Ackerman’s books, before (The Natural History of the Senses) and enjoyed her writing style a lot.
Belle: I did too. It was very smooth, which lent itself pretty well to listening. The narrator was great, too.
I’ve had this on my list for quite a while; there was a great story on This American Life about it, and that piqued my interest. I’ll probably end up listening to the audio instead of reading it, so I’m glad to hear that worked for you!
Teresa: The audio was nice, like I said, because the narrator was excellent and British. I’m sort of a sucker for listening to people with an accent 🙂
I am a fan of Ackerman, so will look for this one. It sounds good for my commute, if I can find the audio version at my library.
Jeanne: Yeah, it would be a good commute book, except for the parts where exciting stuff is happening (I didn’t want to stop listening!).
This one has been on my to-read list for awhile. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to it in time for the WWII challenge, though.
It’s always good when nonfiction isn’t dry. I’m glad to hear this one is good.
I hope it’s okay that I linked to your review on War Through the Generations
Anna: This would have been a good WWII book since it has such a unique story to tell. And it’s definitely ok to link, thanks!
I didn’t even realize that this book was nonfiction. I’m even more intrigued about it than I was previously.
Rebecca: I think I thought the same thing when I first saw a bunch of reviews of it last year. I was excited to find out it was nonfiction, too.