Reviewer: Sharon Brunner
Raymond Luczak’s Animals Out-There W-i-l-d: A Bestiary in English and ASL Gloss painted a picture of the beauty of nature, nature’s resilience, and the ugliness of human behavior. Luczak wrote about the animals, reptiles, and birds who live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.) Luczak grew up in Ironwood, a small mining town in the U.P. Luczak described how humans lost the song of nature when animals were treated with cruelty and when they started to abandon the language of connection. He gave multiple examples of the awful situations animals were placed in due to human ignorance. He mentioned an eagle locked in a cage with a broken wing, meant to hunt. Cows on display at 4-H barns surrounded by their excrement in small stalls. The poor calves locked in small cages to fatten up to serve as veal to the uncaring provided a good example of cruel human behavior. Luczak mentioned deaf children treated like cattle. He was number seven in a hearing family of nine children. He provided a collection of powerful and meaningful poetry that defined an understanding between two worlds (animal and human domains) by using English and ASL Gloss.
The themes that made their appearance in the book were nature’s rhythm and song; human cruelty and humans lack of connection. Nature has a rhythm and song, the order of life. A fox awaits quietly as a mouse scampers through the tall grass. The hawk watches from above and the owl knows where to hide. All dogs originated from wolves. Beavers engineer dams, robins build nests and fly south during the fall months. Human cruelty has occurred with leaps and bounds from cows lined up to be slaughtered to chickens crowded in small cages. Luczak has a point concerning human contact. Social media and cell phones have caused more separation for many humans. I remember a story about two teenagers not talking in the back seat when a parent picked them up from an event and the teenagers told the parent they were texting one another. Animals still continue to communicate. Wolves howl, birds chirp and house cats hiss when disturbed.
What I liked about the book and how the book affected me personally was included in the same paragraph. I liked the scenarios he described in his poems. For example, the woodpecker who tapped out telegrams across the web of forests. He painted a picture of the sky in September when the geese from a “V” of wings and how he would like to feel the wind on his face. I enjoy seeing the geese fly above. Luczak’s speech was mocked when he was a child and he wanted to be a sparrow with tiny wings so he could disappear. Sometimes I wanted to disappear during difficult times. I have seen many of the animals, birds, and insects he mentioned in the book. I have fed deer that come into my yard. I encountered two mother bears when I hiked on a rustic trail in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. One of my dogs had an encounter with a porcupine. Removing the quills was not pleasant for her or me. I am concerned about the lack of monarch butterflies. The perennials I planted have attracted hummingbirds. Like Lucza,k I admire the wonders of nature. I did not understand the ASL (American Sign Language) portion of the book but I am confident people who are trained in ASL found it useful.
When reading this book I was reminded about the book “Bambi: A Life in the Woods” written by Felix Salten in 1923. The animals in the book communicated with one another and human cruelty took Bambi’s mother away from him. The author described the life of a young deer named Bambi and delineated his life from birth through childhood. He learns about the dangers in the forests, most notably man. He became a mature male deer under the guidance of his wise father. The movie that came to mind, which was also a best-selling children’s book, was “Lost in the Woods: The Movie.” The movie features a fawn, turtle, and raccoon who discover the magic of spring. Was the little fawn really lost? The movie was a winner of 12 National and International Awards. I highly recommend it.
I recommend Animals Out-There W-i-l-d for its bountiful depictions of various animals, insects and birds, because of its description of the word Yooper , its awareness of human ignorance and cruelty and its reminder of the importance of connection. A Yooper is a native or inhabitant of the U.P. Animals may outlive humans because they have maintained a rhythm of living. Nature has always held a sense of wonder, and we could learn a lot from the animals who live in the forests. Luczak has captured in his powerful use of poetry an understanding of nature’s song and the conflicting ethos of human behavior
Title: Animals out-There W-i-l-d: A Bestiary in English and ASL Gloss
Author: Raymond Luczak
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