Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and Journey to the Ends of the Earth [Hardcover]

Daniel Glick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 2003

A suddenly single father--and nationally known environmental reporter--takes his children on a world tour of some of the world's rare and endangered life forms while reckoning with loss, change, and the challenges of parenting in this frank, funny, moving memoir. . After the death of his brother and the sudden end of his marriage, and after his ex-wife moved to another state leaving him alone with their two young children, Dan Glick embarked on single fatherhood in an unusual way: he took his kids on a journey around the world. The idea was to go see some of the world's rare life forms before they disappeared from the planet, and to do it before the kids themselves would grow up and chart their own paths. In the summer of 2001 Dan, Zoe, and Kolya took off from Colorado for a six-month journey on which they would see the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the orangutans of Borneo, Javan Rhinos in Vietnam, the tigers of Nepal, and more. Meeting countless challenges--emotional, logistical and physical--the threesome shared experiences they could not have imagined and would not soon forget. Glick weaves accounts of their encounters with the natural world--and each other--with intimate reflections on his own reckoning with loss, change, and fatherhood, illuminating the commonalities between our relationships with each other, and our relationship with the earth we inhabit. For anyone who dreams of travelling to the world's most exotic places, for anyone already navigating that wild journey called parenting, Monkey Dancing is by turns fascinating, funny, and wise.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After an unexpected, devastating divorce, Glick faced the challenge of bonding with his two children. He handled it by taking his 13-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter on a six-month trip around the world. This unusual, superbly written and deeply human story of their travels is a consistently rewarding odyssey. Glick, an environmental reporter (Newsweek, etc.), writes, "I wanted my kids to share my affection for quiet redwoods and cholla cactus, to swim in mountain lakes and sleep under streaking stars during meteor showers." They move from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to Bali, with its contrasting combinations of spiritual awareness and bargaining for surfboard key rings. Glick highlights Borneo's boiling heat and Indonesia's grinding poverty, along with sojourns in Zurich and Kathmandu. The book is striking both as travelogue and personal drama. Glick's memories of his brother, a victim of rare male breast cancer, weave their way powerfully through the story, along with his despair and confusion over losing his wife to a woman. But Glick doesn't sentimentalize and frankly refers to his children's fights by saying, "[I]f sibling bickering were an art form, these two would be Old Masters," while clearly indicating the love beneath their combativeness. His slowly emerging new romance provides another point of interest and tension. By the time Glick is finished talking of lizards, crocodiles, cassowaries, koalas and kingfishers, even readers who lack the author's raging wanderlust will long to encounter unfamiliar cultures and witness firsthand the tigers of Nepal, the Javan rhinos of Vietnam and the orangutans of Borneo. Photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"An adventurous tour to exotic locales... but more important, it's a journey of personal discovery-and healing..." -- USA Today, June 12, 2003.

"Dan Glick sounds like a great father... should inspire all but Republicans with a sense of awe and alarm." -- Willamette Week, June 4, 2003.

"Glick's journalistic background informs his odyssey with a sense of scholarly urgency... leavened by Glick's mordant sense of humor." -- New Yorker, June 16, 2003.

"Glick's writing is frank, amusing, and mellifluous..." -- Chicago Tribune, June 8, 2003.

"Glick...has the skills to make this unusual odyssey believable and fascinating." -- Hartford Courant, June 15, 2003.

"[Glick] is both a father and an observer...his observations not only provide material, but...allow his paternal tendencies to grow..." -- Lafayette (CO) News, June 3, 2003

"a touching, moving story of a most resilient lot," -- Chicago Tribune "Resourceful Traveler," June 15, 2003.

"an inspiring globe-trotting road trip with a personal and environmental agenda...definitely an armchair trip worth taking." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 2, 2003.

"engaging... follows the three Glicks' day-to-day thrill and turmoil as the make their way around the globe... [a] rich narrative..." -- Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2003.

"in this inspiring memoir, [Glick] describes his transformative six-month trip around the world with his children." -- Child Magazine, July 2003.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1 edition (May 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586481541
• ISBN-13: 978-1586481544
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,812 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Travel > Specialty Travel > Solo Travel
  • #45 in Books > Travel > Specialty Travel > Family Travel

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tour of the world, the heart, and life, June 3, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and Journey to the Ends of the Earth (Hardcover)

Daniel Glick's book might become a classic. While mourning the death of his brother and his rather sudden divorce from his wife, Glick finds himself alone with his two children for almost the first time. He chooses to take them around the world in an effort to see some of the planet's endangered species before it's too late. One gets the sense that it's also his effort to become a father before it's too late.
Monkey Dancing works on many levels: environmental journalism, a travelogue, a lesson in parenting. Using the metaphor of world travel, Glick journeys into the heart of fatherhood, marriage, family, loss, conflict, change, and life.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An epic journey, both inwardly and out, May 27, 2003

By 

Wendy Worrall Redal (Boulder, CO USA

Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and Journey to the Ends of the Earth (Hardcover)

Whether you're looking for an escapist adventure, soul-searching memoir or a captivating close-up of natural wonder, Monkey Dancing will not disappoint. Dan Glick's account of his half-year global journey as a newly single dad with two kids is a humorous and moving story, full of reflection and insight about human relationships, with each other and with the planet.
After his wife left him unexpectedly for a woman and his brother died of cancer at 48, Glick sought perspective and healing through traveling and nature -- not unusual modes of solace, but decidedly different when you take 9- and 13-year-old siblings along to the python-infested jungles of Borneo or leech-laden trails in Nepal. Acutely aware that life can be short and unpredictable, Glick wanted to show his kids some of the world's endangered treasures while there was still a chance to do so
The entertaining narrative will amuse anyone who has traveled to challenging places (or wants to), especially those intrepid parents who have experienced both the exasperation and joys of discovery with children in tow. And it may well inspire parents who haven't to give it a go, even -- or maybe particularly -- in a world that currently seems so uncertain.
Monkey Dancing is also a stark tale of the grim conditions facing many of the earth's most spectacular ecosystems. Glick, who covered the environment as a journalist, weaves solid reporting among personal anecdotes for a tale that is as much about our wider connections with the natural world as our ties to our fellow humans.
When Glick learned that 40 percent of the world's coral reefs are gone, Australia's Great Barrier Reef became a top destination on his itinerary. As a father with a passion for nature, he wanted his kids to float among the technicolor fish and flora submerged beneath a turquoise ocean. As a journalist, he saw a story in the fact that even here, in a developed country where the environment is relatively protected, this reef is still gravely threatened. It wasn't inconceivable that the remaining coral reefs could disappear in his children's lifetimes.
He also chose destinations with "charismatic megafauna" that would appeal to his kids: orangutans in Borneo, rhinoceroses in Vietnam and Nepal, and the tigers of the Nepalese lowland plains. Those species, however, are on the verge of extinction, a fact apparent in how difficult it was to locate these animals.
Yet the family's observations were not without hope. Glick shares conservation success stories among the tragedies, offering encouragement that some of the marvels his children encountered may be available to their grandchildren one day as well.
It's not every kid that gets a first-hand look at the earth's vanishing wild places, let alone a chance to bond with their dad in such environs for months on end. Kolya and Zoe Glick are blessed indeed. In the pages of Monkey Dancing, fortunate readers can travel with them, gleaning inspiration to embark on journeys of their own toward deeper, more meaningful connections with the people, the creatures and the remarkable natural places we love.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's the story, stupid..., January 1, 2004

By 

R. Newman "chenrezig68" (Orlando, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and Journey to the Ends of the Earth (Hardcover)

I love just about anything written by a seasoned journalist ... this includes Glick. However, as I am also a Buddhist, quasi-environmentalist, adventure lover, traveler, writer/journalist with two kids and a wife, I can't find a thing wrong with this book. If you're a teetotalling Xian who can't stand that a father introduces his son to drugs/alcohol instead of letting him learn on his own under the pressure of other teens, then you might not like this. But, I must point out, that this is merely a single episode in the book. And it also demonstrates that smart people know how to parent.

The book brings together episodes of adventures in other countries, learning to cope with loss, enjoying the weird brilliance of being human, understanding the threats to our environment, and appreciating life in a developed country. And it's written by someone who knows how to write. Glick isn't someone without talent and/or skills that happens to take a fiction writing seminar and gets lucky with a publisher; he knows how to write.

This is my favorite book of 2003.