Buddy by William Joyce - ADVISABLE

Buddy by William Joyce, 44 pages.  CHAPTER BOOK Atheneum Books, 1997.  $18.   Content: G  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3), EL – ADVISABLE  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

When Gertrude Lintz was twelve, her mother died and she was sent to work on a farm where the caregivers weren’t very kind, but the animals on the farm were her friends.  When Gertrude got older she loved animals and they became her family.  Buddy was a baby gorilla whose parents were killed in the jungles of Africa and he was brought to America to be cared for.  Gertrude heard of the baby gorilla and knew that she just had to have him.  Gertrude raised Buddy and as he got older and bigger she would go shopping with him in public and put him on display at the World Fair.  Eventually, Buddy’s wild side became too much for Gertrude to handle so she found a place for him with other gorillas in a zoo, where she visited him often.  

This book gives a glimpse into some of the outlandish things people did in the 1920’s.  Gertrude and Buddy are easy to love and my son and I couldn’t put the book down because we had to know what would happen to them.  My only complaint is that there aren’t very many illustrations, it is mostly text which makes it less appealing to younger readers.  But the content is fascinating and the pictures that are there are great.  

C. Peterson