The Book of Hopes: Words and Pictures to Comfort, Inspire and Entertain

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Dr. Jane Goodall DBE is an ethologist and environmentalist. From infancy she was fascinated by animal behavior, and in 1957 at 23 years old, she met the famous paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey while she was visiting a friend in Kenya. Impressed by her passion for animals, he offered her the chance to be the first person to study chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, in the wild. And so three years later Jane travelled from England to what is now Tanzania and, equipped with only a notebook, binoculars and determination to succeed, ventured into the then unknown world of wild chimpanzees. The book is a discussion between Dame Goodall and New York Times journalist Douglas Abrams in a series of meetings, both in person and via remote access, in which they attempt to define hope, how we maintain hope in trying times, and her reasons for hope. I highlighted many, many sections of the book, too many to quote in a review. She speaks with so much experience, with incredible wisdom and empathy, and with humor. One would think that with the horrors she has seen such as chimpanzees confined in the smallest of cages for research – these highly intelligent mammals imprisoned for hours, days, weeks, years – forced to spend a boring existence, supposedly for the benefit of humans (mostly it did not prove beneficial, she says) – yet one of her fondest memories is of a female chimp being released onto a sanctuary island. As her cage is opened, Wounda emerges and clutches Jane in a warm embrace. Seeing the photo is quite moving; watching the video online moved me to tears. I especially like the way in which she gets her message across. She is clever and careful and uses stories to represent her beliefs. Rather than telling people her point, she shows the facts to them through a narrative and attempts to sway the reader (or listener) to her cause when they are presented with simple facts. Education is the key to change. And this can be difficult when the ones you are educating are the cause for problems you are so opposed to. Patience and understanding is the key. The Store Full of Magical Things’ is a short poem that was written by Rutendo Tavengerwei for ‘The Book of Hopes’. In the poem, the author talks about when they met an old man in a store full of magical things. The old man offers the author many exciting things before they decide to take a smile that can never fade.

If you love the environment, animals, or just need to feel better about life, this is the book for you! I like the message of this book and agree with a lot of what Jane was saying but after a while it became so repetitive. I already knew about a lot of the things they talked about but still was loving it because of Jane’s perspectives. Doug Abrams shared with us his grief from when his father died - during his time working with Jane on this conversational project.

I have two teenage children, who are very concerned about the world and their places in it. Rightly, they are angry at past generations for taking and using without valuing the toll on future generations. As a child, I remember asking where the smoke from our wood fire went. The answer was that it spread out and became part of the air. But doesn't it pollute the air, does it go away, I wondered? There is so much air that you'll never notice it, was the answer. Here I am, 40 years later, and yes, I do notice it. I notice it and all the other pollutants building up in my environment. I never thought we'd have to stay indoors in the Pacific Northwest due to unhealthy air quality... I believe in the power of young people, but I also see their righteous disappointment and resentment at being forced into the position they are inheriting. Looking at the headlines—a global pandemic, the worsening climate crisis, political upheaval—it can be hard to feel optimistic. And yet hope has never been more desperately needed.

Edited by Katherine Rundell, with contributions from more than 100 children’s writers and illustrators Piers Torday, whose award-­winning work includes The Last Wild and The Lost Magician, agrees. “I have found it very hard to write during the crisis – to focus, essentially,” he says. “But writing this story for Katherine was a joy.” His contribution, like so much of his writing, is about nature. “I wrote about the hare. They are splendid creatures, and the heroes of my next book, but crucially, they have long been associated with renewal. Life continues. The natural world carries on as it always has. It will still be there when we emerge.” This audiobook was absolutely terrific—invaluable reminders of our humanity, our indomitable spirit, our intellect, understandings about how nature teaches us. Why not get started with our The Book of Hopes Read My Picture Activity? This encourages children to apply their reading skills to understand what is happening in an illustration. Featuring three beautiful illustrations from The Book of Hopes, this activity is sure to develop children’s comprehension skills in a fun and engaging way! Jane Goodall is a shining beacon of light in a dark world; her words radiate hope, wisdom and integrity: she is nothing less than an inspiration.The stories themselves were very moving. Goodall prefers to share stories rather than give statistics because you are far more likely to remember a story than a bunch of random statistics. I also believe in the indomitable human spirit. But more than that, I believe, unfortunately, in insatiable human greed. We are about a year post-Trump, which were some of the darkest for me as an American, and while I hope that damage might now be caused at a slower rate, our systems (all of them) are focused on growth and profit. Little room is left for generosity, stewardship, unconditional respect of others and the environment; these things are just too expensive. There is no profit. I'm not suggesting that communism is the answer, but as long as 1% continue to hold a majority of our country's wealth, and continues to focus on business practices that put them in that elite position, and the rest of us continue to cut down the last tree and hunt the last fish to get by and feed our families... there is no hope.

And for the first time, Jane tells the story of how she became a messenger of hope: from living through World War II, to her years in Gombe, to realizing she had to leave the forest to travel the world in her role as an advocate for environmental justice. She details the forces that shaped her hopeful worldview, her thoughts on her past, and her revelations about her next—and perhaps final—adventure. I asked them to write something very short, fiction or non-fiction, or draw something that would make the children reading it feel like possibility-ists: something that would make them laugh or wonder or snort or smile. The response was magnificent, which shouldn't have surprised me, because children's writers and illustrators are professional hunters of hope … I hope that the imagination can be a place of shelter for children and that The Book of Hopes might be useful in that, even if only a little.'Dr. Goodall is best known for groundbreaking studies of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, transformative research that continues to this day as the longest-running wild chimpanzee study in the world. Dr. Goodall is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, a global conservation, advocacy, animal welfare, research, and youth empowerment organization, including her global Roots & Shoots program.