My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope Author: Visit Amazon's Ellie Laks Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0385347669 | Format: PDF
My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope Description
Review
"My Gentle Barn is a wonderful book. You'll love Ellie Laks and the animals she rescued--and who rescued her back." ---Sy Montgomery, The Good Good Pig
--This text refers to the
Audio CD
edition.
About the Author
Ellie Laks has always loved animals and from the time she could walk she headed into the woods daily to be with them, sometimes bringing them home—much to her parents’ chagrin. In 1999, Ellie founded The Gentle Barn, an animal sanctuary that rescues and rehabilitates severely abused and neglected farm animals. Once the animals are healthy, they help Ellie heal at-risk inner-city and special-needs children. Ellie lives on the property outside of Los Angeles with her husband, who runs the Barn with her, and their three children. Learn more at www.gentlebarn.org.
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- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Harmony (March 25, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385347669
- ISBN-13: 978-0385347662
- Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 6.5 x 9.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
With boosters like Ellen DeGeneres and Portia di Rossi, this book is obviously not going to be lacking magnificently supportive reviews - and it will deserve them all. Although I am very concerned about animal welfare, and am a "daily clicker" at the Animal Rescue Site as well as a supporter of various wildlife concerns, as it happens I was not acquainted with Ellie's work or the Gentle Barn website and Facebook connections prior to reading this book. Which emphasizes, I guess, that even with all the other publicity, there IS a need for print communications even in this increasingly digital era.
Ellie Laks describes the evolution of her amazing animal rescue operation with extreme coherence and - no other word suffices - great gentility. She is honest about her challenges in overcoming extremely negative experiences, including the perceived rejection of her childhood attempts to heal her own trauma by rescuing injured animals. Yet she is never cruel or vindictive in her descriptions. She emphasizes the "positives" both in her interactions with her parents during childhood and subsequently, and with her first husband. Throughout the narrative, it is clear that she perceives the difficulty of maintaining a balance between one's "call" or "mission" and the needs of family and friends. Her story is full of spiritual and psychological truth, without being in any sense preachy or proselytizing.
The descriptions of the harrowing circumstances with the various animal abuse situations, including the petting zoo where Ellie got her first rescue, the goat Mary, and the subsequent "backyard butcher" are harrowing.
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