Every Creature Has a Story by Janaki Lenin

 

Every Creature Has a Story by Janaki Lenin: Book Review

Reading “Every Creature has a Story” by Janaki Lenin is a journey to an undiscovered world that inhabits the planet all around us. A book that showcases the miracles of the creation of living beings other than humans.

The book is a compilation of 50 beautifully written essays concentrating on the unique features of the some of the most unique and perhaps unknown creatures that one can come across from all around the world. Reading through the pages one would be surprised to know and understand the life forms that inhabit all around us.

Each chapter has been dedicated to a different form of creature and the author and her team tries to cover almost most of the unique creatures or their breeds or types that they have come across either in personal experiences or through research and study. There’s no doubt that there would’ve been more chapters covering more creatures, but due to the limitation of print and to keep the reading compact, the author has showcased the best of the stories from her collection.

The forms of creatures covered in the book in different chapters can be grouped into Primates, Vertebrates, Birds, Wasps, Elephants, Fish, Shark, Plants, Whales, Giraffes, Monkeys, Ants. Some of the chapters cover different form of a creature already covered in one of the previous chapters. However, the characteristics are different and the story is altogether different.

One of the most productive and perhaps enjoyable aspects of reading this book is that in each of the chapters, the author has not only showcased the unique feature or characteristics through research and practical experiences of researchers, but has also given a detailed background and understanding of the respective creatures for the readers. This aspect helps a reader, who is not much accustomed to wild life, to grasp and understand the behavioral pattern and events unfolding in the chapters.

Another connecting aspect of majority of the chapters is that the author has tried to showcase that the creatures live their lives similar to that of humans with almost the same emotions and activities and the only aspect that differs is the social society in which they spend their lives and the survival activities that they adopt. In fact, in many of the chapters, the reader can directly connect with the birthing, survival, living and ultimate death related experience showcased for the creatures. The stories showcase the extraordinary complexities and diversity in the behavior pattern of the creatures and the interaction of the creature with surrounding all around.

For the readers, the stories may seem like a compilation in to a book form but once one brushes through the reference section towards the end of the book, one would get an idea about the level of research conducted for writing each of the chapters. References have been sought from wide range of publications, journals, research papers, magazines etc. The references have been stated for each of the chapters so that deep interested readers can explore further into the topic from these references.

The readers will get an insightful reading experience while reading majority of the chapters. Each of the chapters has something unique for the reader to understand and come across and explore further. Though all the chapters are intriguing and interesting the best of the lot are as mentioned below.

In the chapter – “ The Eye of the Chameleon”- the reader will come across the  unique features about the functioning of eyes of the Chameleon .The unique feature of each eye of the Chameleon being controlled by the opposite of the brains, so the brain’s left hemisphere knows what the right eye is doing and right hemisphere know what the left eye is doing, will enhance the curiosity level of the reader. Further to this, understanding how the Chameleon has the advantage of its eyes watching two separate objects with the brain controlling each eye separately is an altogether different level of fun for the reader.

In the chapter – “Chimpanzees in mourning” and “Conservative Chimpanzees” the author showcases that like humans, Chimpanzees also have an emotional function of grieving and also like a group of introvert humans, Chimpanzees also restrict social contact with other groups or breeds. The examples through the research of the researchers mentioned in the chapters is enjoyable and eye opening to the readers.

In the Chapter- “Why don’t Elephants get Cancer?”- one would be surprised to understand how the presence of particular proteins and genes helps the Elephants to never get infected with Cancer. The scientific, biological and chemical literature in the chapter is insightful to understand how cells and genes work in Elephants.

In the Chapter – “Shark Navigations” the readers will get to understand how smell along with vision, water currents, electroreception and touch are the primary features that helps the shark with underwater navigation.

In the Chapter- “The Giraffe’s neck solution” the author has showcased in detail about an unheard biological constraint relating to blood supply the brain of the giraffe from the heart through the long neck. The entire understanding of the body symmetry of the Giraffe and how the constraints of the blood flow are overcome due to some natural habit of the creature is intriguing to read. This chapter is perhaps the most brilliantly detailed explanation on entire body symmetry of the creature and will give the reader good knowledge of how the body of the Giraffe functions with respect to blood circulation and blood pressure.

 In the Chapter – “No Ants left behind” and “Laziness has its uses” – the author brings to the reader the world of the Ants. The reader learns about the customs in the society of the Ants after they identify a target and approach the target. While getting ahead with the target, the Ants may get injured and the chapter primarily concentrates on the how the Ants ensure that no injured Ants are left behind and are bought back to the nest. Readers will connect with their practical life experiences where they would have seen an army of Ants approaching a target and when something disrupts their feast, one would observe that after some time, there are no Ants left near the target area.

This chapter will also make the reader know about the importance of “Pheromones”- a smelly chemical compound based on which the ants communicate amongst themselves. In the second part on the Ants, the readers will come across, that like in human society, in the society of Ants too, there are members who don’t want to participate in any hard- work or laborious activities and want to relax with minimal tasks. The scientific behavior of the Ants in such circumstance is a delightful read.

In many of the chapters, the readers will come across scientific and biological explanations on the unique reproductive process of certain creatures like that of Octopussy and Spiders. The scientific explanations with some heavy words and phrases may get a little overwhelming for a reader who is not accustomed to such literatures. However, from knowledge gathering point of view, these chapters serve an important purpose to people interested in creatures and wild life.

On an overall basis, the book is a slow read enjoyment, one chapter a day to reflect on the concepts and detailing of the creatures. Some of the chapters will surely make the reader to explore further.

The language in many of the chapters is scientific, biological and may take some time to get comfortable for a layman reader not accustomed to such concepts, terms and literature.

For wild life, animal and creature enthusiasts, this book is a treasure – a classic collector’s edition book to know many aspects about the unknown that inhabits our planet.