Monday, January 21, 2013

BOOK REVIEW: THE LUCKY ONES

The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight For Farm Animals by Jenny Brown
Published by Penguin Group USA

I love to read books about people, places and situations that seem distant and far away—North Koreans living under communism, for example, or what the universe was like in outer space millions of years ago.  However, there is another world that is happening all around us, and it is just as mysterious and strange: it is a hidden world where our food comes from. 

In The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight For Farm Animals, author Jenny Brown talks about her life as well as her life’s work.  A cancer survivor and amputee at age 10, Jenny had already been through more than her fair share of challenges, learning how to walk with an artificial leg and undergoing chemotherapy.  

Jenny worked hard and built up a successful television/film production career.   However, she found her passion and has built her life around her values.  She now runs the successful Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, where her team rescues and cares for neglected pigs, chickens, goats, cows and other assorted animals (animals, by the way, with personalities and character!).  Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary also offers tours to the public and even now sports a bed & breakfast.  Very cool!  

The really great thing that I liked about this book, which focuses on vegetarianism, veganism and setting up a farm sanctuary is that Jenny doesn’t come across as preachy about being a vegan.  She doesn’t try to shame people—she herself worked at McDonald’s and also served ribs at a restaurant for years.  Rather than sounding like strange vegan propaganda, she passionately stands up for animals through real-life examples (living and dealing with animals on a daily basis).  The book has some rather humorous stories.  By the end of the book, for example, it is easy to see how someone could in fact have an old, sick goat living and peeing in their kitchen.  It almost sounds normal.  Almost.

The book is filled with incredible, uplifting anecdotes, but just as important, it forces the reader to ask themselves a very important and complex question: why is it that we go to great lengths, financially, physically and emotinally, for our dogs and cats, but for some reason we are either completely blind (or worse, dispassionate) to the suffering of pigs, cows, chickens and other farm animals? 

I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a well-written, informative and very entertaining look at the world of animals.  (Not just “farm animals”, but living, breathing animals capable of feeling, suffering and pain).  It is a great read, and while Jenny is entertaining and funny, there is a very serious message in the pages.  I hope that the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary continues their great work! 

Check out this book on Amazon.