YOU ARE A STAR, JANE GOODALL

A warm testimonial to the life and achievements of Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most renowned scientists.

Not really updating Patrick McConnell’s Caldecott Honoree Me…Jane (2011) but offering a fresh and more richly anecdotal recap, Robbins assumes his subject’s voice to trace her progress from early immersion in natural history around her British home to adult observations of chimpanzees in Tanzania and eventual emergence as a world-traveling advocate for animal and environmental conservation. Tallying the names she gave numerous pets and chimps as she goes (though the local assistants who first helped her set up camp in Tanzania go unidentified), the narrator explains how she was able to get close enough to her study subjects to see them using tools, partying, and exhibiting other behaviors long thought exclusively human—and used some of what she learned to raise her own child. Along with a bulleted list of suggestions for readers who want to “Be Like Jane,” the backmatter includes a summary of Goodall’s discoveries and thumbnail profiles of six of her closest chimpanzee friends. In cleanly drawn scenes, Aly places her slender, confident-looking figure in settings both indoors and out, posing serenely with human groups diverse of age and race or sitting on the ground and interacting animatedly with smiling simians. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An enticing invitation to be like the courageous and innovative primatologist profiled here.