Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Deer Creek Publishing
Release Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-9651452-8-X
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Paperback
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Genre: Children’s – Fiction – Environmentalism -- 9-12 / teen
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Kristin Johnson
Reviewer Notes: Reviewer, Kristin Johnson just released her second book, CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING, co-written with Mimi Cummins, in October 2003. Her third book, ORDINARY MIRACLES: My Incredible Spiritual, Artistic and Scientific Journey, co-written with Sir Rupert A.L. Perrin, M.D., is now available from PublishAmerica.  
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What the Orangutan Told Alice
By Dale Smith


Alice Smith seems to have forgotten WHAT THE PARROT TOLD ALICE. With typical teenage self-absorption, the heroine of Dale Smith’s first book would rather be sunning in Las Vegas instead of hanging out with centipedes in Borneo while her father writes a novel about endangered orangutans. However, Alice lives up to her name’s echoes of the rabbit hole when she defends a helpless orangutan named Siti from village boys. Alice then travels through space and time into the rainforest, where she meets fellow traveler Shane, an exchange student from California who is also not enthusiastic about being stuck in Borneo but rescues the chained-up Yayat and gets takes on a ride the wisecracking shutterbug teen doesn’t expect. When Alice meets Shane, destiny is in the air. No, this isn’t “Love in the Jungle.” While Shane and Alice develop a Tracy-Hepburn kind of banter and there is an inevitable hint of romance, the two share a far more meaningful bond as they meet primate psychologist Ibu Anne (perhaps the same Anne E. Russon who executes the brilliant photographs in the book), conservationist Willie Smits who plays “Animal Cops” for orangutans, and of course, the orangutans themselves.

Once again, as in the first book, there’s plenty of nature, fascinating mind-popping science (including a discussion of the theory of evolution that will knock both Darwinists and Creationists on their ears), finger-pointing at humankind’s shortsightedness (as well as a deserved jab at Americans’ refusal to embrace other cultures), suggestions that humans would do well to emulate animals, and wondrous encounters with the rainforest. There are plenty of animal characters such as the wise Lorax-like Marco, the Old Man of the Forest, love-monkey Nik, and survivor Jude, whose owner taught her to drink martinis and smoke Marlboros (no joke). There’s an international (even extraterrestrial!) perspective, intelligent environmental and scientific discourse, as well as the sense that people are finally lighting candles rather than cursing the darkness.

Teens are fond of the phrase “Get real.” In Smith’s story, both teens and adults tell the world to get real and listen to WHAT THE ORANGUTAN TOLD ALICE.