RaveThe Seattle TimesThrough Ackerman's eyes, Antonina is the more fascinating of the duo, an intelligent, gracious woman with an unusual ability to understand and communicate with animals. She is respected by zoo workers (and her hardheaded scientist husband) for her ability to calm the most agitated and potentially dangerous animals … For all her scholarship and protean knack for seeing through her subjects' eyes, Ackerman is at her best when she writes about the many animals vital to the story. She relies neither on saccharine anthropomorphism or clinical zoology but manages instead to capture the nature and role of each animal — the badger, pig and hamster of the household emerge with particular clarity. In short, she devotes the same care she gives to the human characters.
