CLARA THE TRIUMPHANT RHINOCEROS

The true story of an Indian rhino who toured Europe in the 18th century, wowing common people and royalty alike.

Orphaned at an early age and initially raised as a household pet by a Dutch merchant, Clara seems to have come as close to tame as rhinos get. Her world quickly opened up when a visiting sea captain proposed taking her on the road so others “could see for themselves just how wonderful a rhinoceros was.” Though it may be a stretch to declare (as the illustrator does in her appended note) that Clara “was very happy in human company,” at least she seems to have tolerated crowds well. In Messer’s idealized color linocuts, Clara comes off as a sort of huge, gray dog who romps with children and licks her keeper’s face, poses unrestrained for artists and scholars, visits Louis XV’s private zoo, and, with a bright smile, greets diverse spectators in groups large and small. In a rather more credible narrative and afterword, Kurtz tucks in homey details such as Clara’s love of oranges. More cogently, while acknowledging that rhinos aren’t pets and that leaving them to live in their natural habitats is better than confining them to pastures or cages, she suggests that by being in the public eye, Clara played at least a small part in the scientific revolution by helping to dispel myths and misconceptions about her own species and large animals in general.

A sweet historical tidbit.