Customer Reviews

The New Noah

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Durrell spent twenty years as an animal collector, from 1947 to 1968, and a further twenty on conservation expeditions, as well as running Jersey Zoo for much of that time. From the start he wrote about these expeditions as a way to make more money, and his wry, dry humour and wonderful observation of both people and animals made the books enormously popular in the UK.

"The New Noah" is the first one he wrote just for children. It's a tremendous success as a children's book -- my ten year old daughter is halfway through it and loves it -- but adults will enjoy it too. I read it aged about ten, and have read it again at least half a dozen times in the thirty odd years since then.

The stories are drawn from two or three of Durrell's early expeditions, to British Cameroon (now Cameroon) in Africa, and to British Guiana (now Guyana) in South America. The expeditions took place in the late forties and early fifties -- "The New Noah" was first published in 1955.

The chapters are thematic, rather than chronological; there's a chapter about the various monkeys he had in his camp, and so on. My favourite is Chapter 4, "In which I am bitten by Bandits". The bandits are kusimanses, a kind of west African mongoose; small, energetic, endearing and troublesome. I have great memories of many more stories -- the terrific adventure of capturing a giant anteater; the juggling porcupine; the cute galagos; and the foolish pangolin.

The line-drawings by Ralph Thompson are a big part of the pleasure of a Gerald Durrell book, and this one is no exception. I can't tell from the description of this edition if it has them -- I certainly hope so. If you decide to buy one of the second-hand ones that Amazon has for sale, I suggest you ask the seller if those illustrations are in that edition.

Very highly recommended; kids aged ten or above should thoroughly enjoy it, and animal-crazy kids under that age shouldn't have too much trouble with the language. And adults will love it too.