Recommended Reading Kathryn and the Runaway Zoo

Author: Bridget Cummings Dorman

"A girl that talks to animals. A cramped zoo. All the zoo animals going down the Mississippi in a houseboat. Fantastic!" writes local Middlebury resident, Lisel Peters-deCourval. The twelve-year-old critic is describing William B. Catton's new book, "Kathryn and the Runaway Zoo." Lisel's review represents an honest and animated impression of a book tailored to readers of her age.

While "Kathryn and the Runaway Zoo" is his first book for young adults, Catton is no stranger to the world of writing. In addition to his 20 years spent teaching at Middlebury College, Catton also taught history at Northwestern University, The University of Maryland and Princeton University. He is the son of Civil War historian Bruce Catton, and is known for his collaborative works with his father, "Two Roads to Sumter" (1963), on the causes of the Civil War, and "The Bold and Magnificent Dream: American's Founding Years 1492-1815" (1979).

Catton's love of history and nautical enterprises shines through in this recent book. It is a story about Kathryn, a thirteen-year-old animal lover, and her "runaway" zoo. Kathryn has the ability to speak with animals and together, she and her zoo friends plan an escape down the Mississippi River in search of a more suitable home for the animals.

Catton conceived of the book as a tribute and memorial to his late daughter, Kathryn Cherry Catton, who died in 1978. As he explains, "[Kathryn] was an inveterate reader and lover of animals, so I wrote the kind of story she would have enjoyed about a young girl very much like herself, who befriended some zoo animals and had adventures with them."

Kathryn's talent is woven into a story rich with history about the Mississippi River as well as descriptive introductions to animals across the globe. Catton's attention to the history and geography of the Mississippi and the detailed descriptions of Kathryn's animal friends make the story a balancing act between fact and fiction, or what we, the readers, believe is fictive or beyond imagination. Many young animal and environmental enthusiasts have discovered a "language" that exists between man and nature. Catton's story teases our awareness of this relationship and asks little of our imagination, as he makes the co-existence of man and beast, predator and prey, and fact and fiction believable.

An encyclopedia, which offers pictures and descriptions of Kathryn's friends - "Griffon," the harpy eagle, "Erin," the peregrine falcon, "Karoonda," the Australian kookaburra, "Bandit," the raccoon and "Pedro," the coati (who Catton explains is Bandit's South American cousin), to name a few -would be a great accompaniment to this tale, enhancing the young reader's experience of Kathryn's journey down the Mississippi to New Orleans on her modern day ark.

Catton makes great attempts to ensure that every detail of Kathryn's tale is justified. The narrator of her story assists the reader in understanding her otherwise far-fetched talent: "After some moments of this silent exchange of stares, [Kathryn] heard a low sound. It obviously came from the tiger, and the sound carried a meaning she suddenly understood: "Why so sad, Young Sister?" (What Kathryn actually heard, and just now began to comprehend, was in the animal language. She has supplied English translations for our convenience.)"

As Kathryn said of her experience on the Mississippi, "there's always something you can hardly wait to see around the next bend." So too is Kathryn's adventure with her zoo animal friends a suspenseful and exciting journey. "Kathryn and the Runaway Zoo" excites the reader's desire for knowledge, satisfies one's love of history and encourages an appreciation of the environment.

Bridget Citly, a fourth-year student at Breadloaf School of English, and lives locally in Monkton. Citly has worked at her family's restaurant, Rosie's, in Middlebury for the past four years. She writes for a local paper, The Valley Voice.