"Many people are blessed to share their living and recreational spaces with a wide variety of nonhuman animals (animals). Common and attractive animals often are the ones who attract our attention. However, other creatures, a wide variety of wild neighbors, also can gain our attention and serve to bring people together, especially when we pay attention to who they are and their inherent beauty."
"I learned about Jonathan, an Aldabra giant tortoise who is the world's oldest land animal. He was taken from the Seychelles to the governor's mansion on the island of Saint Helena where he lives to this day. This year, he is turning 193! It is deeply humbling, and I began to imagine how much Jonathan has seen; The Tortoise's Tale is the result."
"For these and other reasons, I found Dr. Kendra Coulter's new book, The Tortoise Tale, to be an eye-opening read. In her lovely story, Kendra shows how "A century of American history unfolds through the eyes of a giant tortoise with a heightened awareness for live music, the location of edible flowers, and the nuances of human behavior." Here's what she had to say about her whimsically profound exploration of humanity's entangled journey."
A giant tortoise's life reveals deep interconnections among humans, animals, and environments across centuries. The tortoise experiences displacement from ancestral lands into exclusive human settings, witnessing social changes and human behaviors. The narrative explores animal agency, ecofeminism, ecoanxiety, wellbeing, and the ethics of captive animals. Long-lived nonhuman perspectives illuminate historical shifts and invite empathy with multispecies communities. Observations of ordinary pleasures, such as live music and edible flowers, accentuate sensory richness and relational bonds. The story emphasizes attentiveness to wild neighbors and the inherent beauty of diverse creatures as a means to bridge people and strengthen communal care.
Read at Psychology Today
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