Animal Camp

Skyhorse Publishing, 2010
Hardcover, $24.95
208 pages
ISBN-10: 1616080116
ISBN-13: 978-1616080112
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Picking up where she left off in Where the Blind Horse Sings, Kathy Stevens regales us with more tales of the rescued animals at Catskill Animal Sanctuary (CAS), some touching, some hilarious, all provocative. We meet Barbie, the broiler hen found hiding under a blue Honda in Brooklyn who falls for the animal ambassador Rambo, a ram with an uncanny sense of what others need. Then there’s Norma Rae, the turkey rescued from a “turkey bowl” just before Thanksgiving. There’s also Noah, a twenty-one-year-old stallion, starved and locked in a dark stall for his entire life until he came to the safety and plenty of CAS. Claude, the giant pink free-range pig, is but another of the “underfoot family,” those who roam the barnyard, free and with dignity, interacting with their own and other species in startling and profound ways.

The love Stevens has for these animals, and the amount of love they give her in return, is stunning and will make any reader more thoughtful of how we treat a whole class of animals in this country. Pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, horses, goats, sheep, and more, march into CAS and into our hearts as we learn about their quirks and personalities and what makes us human.

Where the Blind Horse Sings

Skyhorse Publishing, 2007
Hardcover, $22.95
240 pages
ISBN-10: 160239055X
ISBN-13: 978-1602390553
Buy: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Borders
Social: Facebook Page | Good Reads | Wikipedia

More than anything else, Where the Blind Horse Sings is a book about love. Written by the founder of Catskill Animal Sanctuary, a haven for abused farm animals, the book depicts a world in which distinctions between “human” and “animal” are meaningless, a world where care and affection trump years of neglect and abuse.  Readers will meet animals like Dino, an old toothless pony who survived an arson that killed 23 horses; Rambo, the sheep who informs the staff when an animal needs assistance; Paulie, the former cockfighting rooster who eats lunch with the humans and accompanies the director around town on her errands; and dozens of other critters, all larger than life.  Side by side with them is a staff of hilarious, irreverent, but always loving humans, for whom every animal life—even that of an injured frog rushed to the vet for emergency surgery—has merit. These tales will profoundly—and joyously—change your life.