What We Fed to the Manticore

Most of the books I read with my kids have animals as the main characters, but few books aimed at adults do, so I was thrilled to find these stories where wolves, vultures, and tigers provide nuanced, complex perspectives on a threatened world. I learned about love and deep ocean noise from a young whale and felt the loneliness of a polar bear who is parted from his mother, his twin, and others of his kind.

Through these mythic stories, I realized the deep strangeness that comes from losing my connection to other animals and the true pleasure of returning… show more.

An original, shatteringly beautiful book of stories told from the perspective of animals, all of which are dealing with climate disaster, war, the threat of extinction, or some other existential pain.

To put it simply, this book changed me, and pushed me to consider, in a different light, the mess humankind has made of our planet, that we share with all living beings. It made me think, cry, smile, and feel the greatest tenderness and compassion for the animals—a donkey, a white bear, a dog that tried to protect his friend the rhino from a poacher.

The soft, empathetic writing… show more.

I live and breathe nonfiction about animals. Every now and then, I get smacked in the face by a book like this, a book that reminds me just how powerful fiction can be.

In these short stories, Kolluri takes on the perspective of animals from real-life news items, like when a zookeeper painted his donkey to look like a zebra, or when the zoo in Gaza was destroyed by Israeli bombs in 2014, and embodies their minds and spirits.

In nonfiction about animals, writers work hard to avoid anthropomorphizing the creatures they write about, but in fiction, Kolluri embraces it,… show more.