Presenter of
the National Book Awards
Subscribe
to our newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter
Presenter of
the National Book Awards
Subscribe
to our newsletter
Filed in the following archives
Into the jungle. Into the wild. Into harm’s way.
When he was a boy, Luc’s mother would warn him about the “mock men” living in the trees by their home — chimpanzees whose cries would fill the night.
Luc is older now, his mother gone. He lives in a house of mistreated orphans, barely getting by. Then a man calling himself Prof comes to town with a mysterious mission. When Luc tries to rob him, the man isn’t mad. Instead, he offers Luc a job.
Together, Luc and Prof head into the rough, dangerous jungle in order to study the elusive chimpanzees. There, Luc finally finds a new family — and must act when that family comes under attack.
Eliot Schrefer’s Threatened eloquently unites endangered chimpanzees with an equally endangered boy. When AIDS orphan Luc is hired by a professor of dubious credentials, he trades street life for the jungles of Gabon. There among the chimps, he discovers danger, self- sufficiency, and an unlikely family. This is more than a tale of animal conservation. Emotionally told with lush descriptions and insight into chimp and human behavior, Threatened illuminates our common struggle to survive.
