My Family and Other Animals (A Puffin Book) - Softcover

Durrell, Gerald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141374101 ISBN 13: 9780141374109

Publisher: Puffin, 2016

Synopsis

Now a major TV Series!

Ten-year-old Gerald doesn't know why his older brothers and sisters complain so much.

With snakes in the bath and scorpions on the lunch table, the family home on the Greek island of Corfu is a bit like a zoo so they should feel right at home...

Gerald joyfully pursues his interest in natural history in the midst of an unconventional and chaotic family life - all brilliantly retold in this very funny book.

About this title

Review:

As a self-described "champion of small uglies," Gerald Durrell (1925-1995) devoted his life to writing and the preservation of wildlife, from the Mauritius pink pigeon to the Rodriques fruit bat. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the Greek island of Corfu, but ended up as a delightful account of his family's experiences that were, according to him, "rather like living in one of the more flamboyant and slapstick comic operas".

As a 10-year-old boy, Gerry left England for Corfu with "all those items that I thought necessary to relieve the tedium of a long journey: four books on natural history, a butterfly net, a dog, and a jam-jar full of caterpillars all in imminent danger of turning into chrysalids". Durrell's descriptions of his family and its many eccentric hangers-on (he stresses that "all the anecdotes about the island and the islanders are absolutely true") are highly entertaining, as is the procession of toads, scorpions, geckos, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, the puppies Widdle and Puke, and the Magenpies. This is a lovely book. --Christine Buttery

Review:

"A lot of frolic, fun, and charming ribaldry, as well as the warm feeling of having been transported to a lovely spot where worry is unknown and anything is believable."-The New York Times
"A most enjoyable idyll." -The New Yorker

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0141374101
• ISBN 13: 9780141374109
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384