The Zookeeper's Wife Book Report

The book The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman is about a families life during World War II. It is mainly about how Antonina had an impact on many people’s life. It starts off telling what the zoo looks like in great detail. It talks about how the young animals get to stay in the villa with them and Rys and Antonina help take care of them. They go to a cabin they have in the woods because they get news that the Germans are going to invade Poland next. Antonina says that she wants to move to a country with no military interests. Then she goes further and says that it is basically impossible for that to happen. Then Jan comes to bring them back home to spend some time with him before he is sent to fight in the front. They see that the zoo had

She loves the animals so much that when they were sick or too little they stayed in the villa. It shows this when it says, “Not even the villa’s living room was off limits to the animals. Across the room, a large wooden credenza displayed book, periodicals nests, feathers, small skulls, and eggs.”(23) I think that this is an example of how she cares for them so much because you have to really love and care for the animals to let them live with you. Especially because they aren’t like normal pets. Some of them are baby polar bears and lynxes. Even when the animals are basically taking over the villa she makes sure they are having the best life they can. Another example of how much Antonina loved animals is on page 26. It says, “Jan, a devoted scientist, credited Antonina with a great deal of sympathy when it came to animals: she is so sensitive, she’s almost able to read their minds. She becomes them, a way of observing and understanding animals that is rare, a sixth sense.”I feel that this show how much she cares for animals because she understands them in a way that nobody else can. She always pays attention to them like they are her children and put their needs before hers. It shows this when it says, “I’ll take your most important animals to Germany, but I swear I’ll take good care of them… Please think of your animals as a loan, and immediately after the war I’ll return them to you,” it also says, “They had no choice but to comply, and hope for the best.” Antonina didn’t fully trust Heck, but she wanted to do what was best for the animals and thought that they would have a much better chance of living at the German zoo compared to in Warsaw during a