Benjamin MeeReseñas

Family

Enjoyed this memoir written with honesty and self deprecation and great humor.
I also learned a lot about the modern zoo and it’s role in conservation. So much I didn’t know about zoos helping with species that are endangered in whatever degree. Benjamin Mee is just an ordinary guy with a great dream, to own and operate an important zoological space. In July2007 the zoo opens and we were there for all the adventures beforehand. We meet a wonderful cast of animals and felt Benjamin grief when he looses his wife Katherine to a brain tumour . There is lots of tensions with deadlines, money troubles and code red ( escaping animal) !!
A great story.

A very interesting account of one family's quest to buy and run a private zoo in England.

3.5 stars.

I really enjoyed this book. It's not just about starting the zoo, but the author's life while involved in it. Very good.

Check out my review at:
http://www.shannonsbookbag.blogspot.com/2012/10/we-bought-zoo-mee.html

Though it started a bit slow, once negotiations for the zoo started, it was a whirlwind of activity! From not getting the zoo to getting the zoo to animal escapes and vet visits, this book was fantastic!

I found myself much more interested in Benjamin Mee's relationship with his family and dying wife Katherine than in the daily operations of and process of opening a zoo. When Mee talks about his wife there is much more emotion and connection than there is when he talks about zoo animals getting their dental work done, etc.

Most retirement plans do not include buying a broken down zoo. Mee’s story will give you a new appreciation for well-run family zoos. This is an excellent portrayal of relationships between generations and siblings. Keep in mind that the movie based on the book includes characters or relationships not necessary found within this book.

This autobiographical book tells the story of Benjamin Mee, his family and their desire to purchase a run down zoo. Mr. Mee writes a do-it-yourself column, his siblings have a range of occupations, his mother is retired and his wife has just been diagnosed with a debilitating (and eventually fatal) illness. Why not buy a zoo? Mr. Mee tells his story in its entirety, touchingly describing his wife’s illness and death, truthfully detailing the frustrations faced in trying to purchase and run the zoo and some of the funnier moments involved in going after his dream.

I did enjoy reading this book and I applaud Mr. Mee and his family for doing what it takes to make a dream come true. My only disappointment in reading this book probably comes from having seen the trailers for the movie adaptation. I really wanted to some more stories about the animals.

I "read" this via audio book. As far as audio books are concerned, the narrator was just ok. Who knows, with a better narrator I might have enjoyed it a little more. But overall, it was a good story about Benjamin Mee and his family, and their unusual purchase of a rundown zoo in England. There were certainly heartwarming moments, particularly when Benjamin talked about his wife, Katherine, or the animals. He spends the majority of the book discussing the hard work that went into fixing and renovating the zoo, in an attempt to regain their license. It was a nice story, and I look forward to watching both the movie and the BBC special.½

Good story of how Benjamin Mee and his family purchase and refurbish a run down zoo in Devon. The funds for the purchase come from Mee's mother who is recently widowed and sells her family home. He is helped by his siblings and his wife and children. It is a large hill to climb to obtain funds, trained staff and manage to prepare the park for a re-opening. They must remove tons of rubbish and detritus in order to start over all the while caring for the many exotic and endangered animals. Mee's wife Katherine dies during this process of a brain tumour which is very tragic. His reaction is to throw himself into the renovation with immense vigor. They obtain their licence to re-open and after a few months, the zoo is a success.½

I loved this book!

I won this book from the Goodreads FirstReads giveaway. I really enjoyed it. I love to read about a profession that is new to me. I like to see how things look from the inside. This was a fascinating fly on the wall look at zookeeping. What a story! It doesn't run completely chronologically and so this caused me some confusion at first, but it didn't diminish my pleasure in reading. I work at a library and this book will be high on my list of books to recommend and I will probably buy a couple of copies for Christmas gifts. I was also given a DVD of the movie and I look forward to viewing it. I'm glad that I had the book to read first.

I don't usually think that the movie version is better than the book, but in this case, the movie far surpasses the book. I was excited about the prospect of digging into this book about a family triumphing despite the most desperate odds, but in the end, it fell flat of the mark. The writing, despite the author's sense of humor, wasn't very good, and the selected photos were a huge disappointment (not one of Benjamin himself?). I was extremely annoyed by all of the bunk about evolution, which did not seem relevant to include, or flow naturally with the story. It was rather shocking to learn that, while he grieved his wife, he felt that it was just another bump in the evolutionary scheme of things. To say the least, I didn't connect with the author at all, and even the more enjoyable bits about the animals didn't redeem this book. I was expecting the feeling I get when I read James Herriot, but this book isn't remotely in the same class.

I loved the idea of this book, I was enchanted with the title and looked forward to reading it.
It was readable but I guess I expected better. The prose was a bit amateur and I was surprised at the rather poor selection and number of photos. There was so much there, it should have been better. I wonder if he wasn't just in a bit of a hurry to coincide with the tv series?
I would love to see a re-write of this with new adventures and more photos.

Great writing. I found myself laughing many times as well as grieving with the writer.

Listened to from December 28, 2011 to January 03, 2012

Audiobook Review - Here's the thing, I almost wish I had read this instead of listened because I kept wanting to look up pictures of the animals mentioned or of the zoo iteself. (And now that I have, I'm frustrated by the lack of pictures with descriptions on the DZP website!)

Despite that, this is a great story about the Mee family and how they randomly decided to buy a zoo. I've never been an audiobook listener, and I'm still under 10 book when it comes to my total listening, but I liked this one. It's quite uplifting to read about a family that overcomes incredible odds to achieve their dream. But it isn't all happy, at one point I was sobbing in my car...just a warning.

There are three main stories in this book: what it was like for Benjamin Mee and his family to buy a zoo, what it was like being a zoo director, and what it was like slowly losing Benjamin's wife, Katherine. All of the stories are somewhat interesting, but the story of running a zoo was the most fascinating to me personally. Though I have my own personal questions about zoo conservation (based partially on thoughts from Big Cat Rescue), I thought Benjamin Mee shared a fascinating story with a lot of insights into animals. My biggest complaint is actually that the website doesn't do enough to bridge the gap between when the story ended and where the zoo is now.

Another book where I had seen the movie first.

Here though the story was much more compelling than the movie was and it was a shame that they transplanted the true tale from England to California. The makers of the movie though did take liberties to make the tale more friendly to audience and children, than Mee, telling the truth of his life, did.

But as an adult, able to read and understand the author's journey, this is a story worth the read, just as watching the movie, with this additional understanding makes the movie an enjoyment to be renewed time and again.

There are moments that perhaps should have been further developed, and the writers style may have needed polish in places. Some moments perhaps could have been cut if length was an issue to give more space to others. And perhaps even charts and a map of the Dartmoor Wildlife Park would have been helpful to augment the story.

Still, reading the story and the sense that the Mee's saved so many animals and help to extend their lives by doing so, is an uplifting story, one that all will enjoy.½

Great book about Benjamin Mee and his family and their adventure of buying a derelict zoo. The family suffers the loss of Benjamin's wife, but soldiers on with the help of Grandma and Ben's siblings.
Having seen the movie - the book is VERY different, but a very good read. I hope that Mr. Mee will have the time to write more stories about his life as a zoo director.

What an interesting story - who would ever think of doing such a thing as buying a family zoo?? While there were obviously important and emotional things going on the private life of Mr. Mee, this memoir focuses pretty tightly on the work that went into the opening of their zoo. I enjoyed the stories that had to do with the animals - how they moved them, how they worked to make their quality of life better, some of the near misses they had.

This was a quick read and enjoyable, although not quite what I expected. I wanted more animals and less business, but I guess part of the lesson of the story is that when you buy a zoo you have to take care of business in order to take care of the animals! It really was a leap of faith this family took, and they worked extremely hard and long to achieve their goal of opening the zoo. Benjamin Mee had a unique combination of skills that proved very useful to the zoo; because he was a journalist, he knew how to publicize the zoo's story in order to bring in support.

The book ends before the zoo has been open a full year; it would be nice if it were updated to include more recent events, or if Mee would write a sequel. I believe the book would also be improved with the addition of photos. People who read books about animals and zoos generally want to SEE those animals! There was a camera crew on site during almost the entire scope of the book's story - you'd think they'd include some pix in the book.

I would like to watch the British series Ben's Zoo but am not as interested in seeing the movie adaptation, which was Americanized. Here's the website for the zoo: http://www.dartmoorzoo.org/

Overall, this was an interesting and readable book, but don't expect it to be chockablock with animal stories!

Als Benjamin Mee samen met zijn familie een afgeleefde zoo in Dartmoor besluit te kopen, verandert zijn leven voorgoed. Het vallen en opstaan van de nieuwe zoodirecteur die nog nooit een jaguar van kortbij heeft gezien en nu maar een paar maanden heeft om de nodige vergunningen te krijgen. Niet slagen is geen optie. Niet alleen zitten de spaarcenten van zijn moeder en de erfenis van zijn vader in de zoo, het is ook de achtergrond van de strijd die zijn vrouw voert en verliest tegen kanker.

Benjamin Mee is een grote fan van Gerald Durrell, maar aan diens niveau kan hij in de verste verte niet tippen. Het boek is wat onbeholpen geschreven. Ik had beter verwacht van een man die zichzelf journalist noemt en die een bestaan als schrijver probeerde op te bouwen alvorens zich in het leven van een zoodirecteur te smijten, maar misschien is dat te wijten aan de Nederlandse vertaling. Een goede redacteur had waarschijnlijk ook al geholpen.

I wanted to read this book after seeing the commercials for the movie We Bought A Zoo that came out in December. I never know how books will translate onto the big screen and how many significant changes the movie will make from the book. So often the book is better because a movie has a limited amount of time to tell the entire story and some of the details are usually forced out along the way. Although I still haven't seen the movie yet, I'm not sure this will be the case with We Bought A Zoo.

After reading BermudaOnion's review of We Bought A Zoo, I will admit that I was rethinking my strategy and considering going straight to the movie. But since I already had placed the book on hold through my library, I decided I would start it and then if I wasn't enjoying it I had already given myself permission to not finish the story. I completely agree with her assessment that Mee writes what could be a very emotional story in a very clinical way. While I'm sure the business aspects of the transaction were his primary focus and his background in journalism may have prompted a factual recitation, it seems he completely missed the human interest angle on this story.

Essentially, Mee moves his family from the idyllic life they have created for themselves in southern France to a completely run-down zoo in the English countryside. While he negotiates the red tape involved with purchasing the zoo, his wife Katherine faces a life-threatening brain tumor. The move also involves their two young children, Mee's brother Duncan, and Mee's mother. It was easy to forget about Katherine, the children, and Mee's mother as they were so seldom mentioned. Katherine and the children seem to have their place in the story before the move to the zoo and then only show up rarely. Mee's mother finally gets a place closer to the end of the story as he talks about how she becomes involved with the business after Katherine's death. These are the people I really wanted to hear about - how did this move affect them?

Instead we read about the zoo's dire financial situation, the staff squabbles, and the physical repairs that need to be completed. Mee can't seem to decide if his zoo keepers are competent and willing to work together to bring the zoo back as a viable business or if they resent the changes being implemented and the new staff being brought on board. While I'm sure there were moments of each, Mee seems to paint a drastically different overall picture at various points in the book.

I know that the movie changes the location of events from England to southern California and I am very curious to see what other changes they have made. I'm hoping that the movie will focus more on the people living out this story and will have more of an emotional impact than the book. While I won't be rushing out to see the movie right away (for various reasons, not the least of which is how expensive movies have gotten with ticket prices plus the cost of childcare), We Bought A Zoo is definitely on my radar for when it is available on DVD or streaming.