The Warm Place - Softcover

Farmer, Nancy

3.6

287 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140379568 ISBN 13: 9780140379563

Publisher: Puffin, 1996

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When Ruva, a young giraffe, is captured and sent to a zoo in San Francisco, she calls upon two rats, a street-smart chameleon, a runaway boy, and all the magical powers of the animal world to return to "the warm place" that is home

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From School Library Journal:

Grade 4-6?Ruva, a young wild giraffe, is captured and taken to a San Francisco zoo. She thinks only of returning to Africa, and with the help of a scruffy rat named Troll and a cynical chameleon, Nelson, she makes her way back to the same boat, the Apocalypso, commanded by the evil Slope family, that brought her to America. On board, her old friend and tutor Rodentus von Stroheim the Third, and a young boy, Jabila, work together with the animals to carry out a plan to free themselves from the tyranny of their captors. The plot is fresh and fast-moving, and many of the details inventive?Strangleweeds and Gross Green Sea-Going Sargasso Snails play a large part in the group's eventual freedom, and intriguing Biblical stories told from the animals' point of view add interest. However, grumpy Nelson's anti-female bias quickly becomes tiresome. Children new to animal fantasy should respond well to the book's sense of adventure and excitement, and to the feel-good ending. Although this is not quite in the same league as such modern-day classics as Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Atheneum, 1971) or Dick King-Smith's animal stories, it does showcase yet another side of the multifaceted author who created the highly original The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (Orchard, 1994).?Ellen Fader, Oregon State Library, Salem
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Gr. 4^-7. Good fantasy changes the way the world looks, and that's what Farmer's book does. Ruva, the novel's central figure, is a young giraffe captured in Africa and brought to a zoo near San Francisco. At the book's conclusion, she has found her way back to Africa, with the help of a diverse alliance that includes a witty chameleon, a rat named Rodentus von Stroheim the Third, and a boy named Jabila. The novel's end is not unexpected, but the recasting of the relationship between animals and human beings is refreshing: Farmer tells the story from the animals' point of view and gives King Solomon a background in shape-changing. With witty, crisp dialog, this novel will be a fine read. Mary Harris Veeder

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