Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2008
400 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
Don't you want to be part of the conversation? In Thanking the Monkey, Karen Dawn covers pets, fur, fashion, food, animal testing, activism, and more. But as the title playfully suggests, this isn't like any previous animal rights book. Thanking the Monkey is light on lectures meant to make you feel guilty if you're not a leather-eschewing vegan. It lets you have fun as you learn about Paul McCartney's love of lambs and why Prince won't wear wool. You'll meet Fall Out Boy's Andy Hurley and Pete Wentz—and their favorite traveling companion, Hemingway, Pete's dog. You'll read why Natalie Portman, Alicia Silverstone, and so many of those skinny but not bitchy actresses won't eat or wear animals. And you'll laugh over dozens of cartoons from Dan Piraro's Bizzaro to other animal-friendly comics.
This fun primer for a smart and socially committed generation delivers some serious surprises in the form of facts and figures about the treatment of animals. Yes, it will shock you with tales of primates still used in animal testing on nicotine or killed for oven cleaner. But it will also let you lighten up and laugh a little as we work out how to do a better job of thanking the monkey.
"Dawn manages, despite the seriousness of the subject matter, to intersperse bits of humor throughout, primarily through cartoons. A riveting text you'll be sure to want to read" - Library Journal.
"Starred Review. This has the potential to become a big hit for a general reading audience that wants to know what the fuss is about animal rights, as well as the many college students at the forefront of animal rights activism." - Publishers Weekly.
"[A]n easily digested, sound-bite-laden primer to all sides and gradations of the crusade for animal rights . . . An excellent introduction." - Booklist.
"In an age, and in a medium, in which people seem to be content with quick clichés and approximations, Karen Dawn writes a lucid, restrained, and accurate prose that could be held up as a model to her profession. Her work treads that fine line between the provocative and the counter-productively undiplomatic assuredly." - JM Coetzee.
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