How To Be A Good Creature - Sy Montgomery

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How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery (author) and Rebecca Green (Illustrator) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (September 25, 2018), 978-0544938328

How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals

National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery reflects on the personalities and quirks of 13 animals—her friends—who have profoundly affected her in this stunning, poetic, and life-affirming memoir featuring illustrations by Rebecca Green.

Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet’s rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy’s life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets.

This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals—Sy’s friends—and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.

Reviews
“Naturalist Sy Montgomery rekindles her dormant childhood desire to talk with animals in a narrative that shimmers with grace and wonder. Ten tales poignantly personify 13 critters both commonplace and exotic, from Tess the border collie and Chris the extroverted pig to spiders and octopuses. “Many young girls worship their older sisters… [Mine] was a dog, and I… wanted to be just like her: Fierce. Feral. Unstoppable,” …Montgomery’s lyrical storytelling and resonant lessons on how animals can enhance our humanity result in a tender, intelligent literary memoir.”—Publisher's Weekly
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Read an Excerpt

When my language skills grew robust enough to discuss such matters, I had announced to my parents that I was really a horse. I galloped around the house neighing and tossing my head. My father agreed to call me “Pony.” But my elegant and socially ambitious mother, wishing that her little girl had the good sense to pretend she was a princess or a fairy, was worried. She feared that I was what people then called “retarded.”

The Army pediatrician assured her the pony phase would wear off. It did—but only when I disclosed that now, I was really a dog.

From my perspective, this presented only one problem. While my parents and their friends were eager to show me how to be a little girl, there was nobody around who could show me how to be a dog. Until I was three, and my short life’s ambition was realized with the arrival of Molly...
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