Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild

If you are interested in learning, teaching, training, animals, or stories, this is your book. Reading about how animals learn lets one suddenly see the subject from a different perspective, and discover what one knew all along. For example, when McCarthy explains the various ways in which animals learn by imitation, one realizes how little we learn in classrooms taking notes, and how much by imitation. Anyone who teaches or trains can profit from the parts about how animals teach their offspring and about how wildlife rehabilitators teach orphaned animals. It turns out that animals learn best when copying another beginner of their own kind, rather than some incomprehensibly competent alien creature. Finally, what is most charming about this book is that it tells true stories about animals. The only minds besides our own that we will ever know are those of animals, and this books gives us glimpses into them. Often these glimpses make one laugh with astonished delight. Sometimes, they give one the little shiver that old fairy tales do: the adolescent cuckoo hearing another cuckoo's cry and knowing suddenly that the creatures who raised him are not its kind; the mother lion and the baby gazelle trying and failing to be a family. This is the kind of book that you follow family members around reading bits from it aloud till they take it from you and start reading it, and then follow you around reading bits of it aloud.

This book is amazing! "Becoming a Tiger" offers fascinating details and insights into the lives of animals, from the familar kitty cat to the ferocious tiger to birds and chimps and killer whales and all sorts of beasties. The author, McCarthy, lays out compelling arguements about the learning capabilities and intelligence of animals (which I've never questioned, by the way, having had pets all my life). More, McCarthy does so in an easy to read, witty (wink-wink) writing style that had me laughing out loud over and over again, often in tears. In fact, I brought this book with me to Hawaii as my "beach book," and quite honestly, I was more engaged in reading it than in enjoying beautiful Waikiki. I also brought it to the dentist, which was a mistake, because I ended up bursting into uncontrollable giggles in the waiting room after reading a particuarly hysterical account of animals trying to mate. People were staring at me while I tried desperately hard not to laugh, which only made me laugh harder. They probably thought I was on drugs. I was most certainly enjoying this book!!! My favorite stories (and there are hundreds of stories, by the way) include the chimp that wages war against an electrical socket, the dolphin that scrapes algae off its aquarium with a sea slug, and the aforementioned mating chapter (the tigers are especially amusing). I can't tell you how many times I've read these particular jewels to friends and family. The first chapter may feel a little "academic" as you read it but, trust me, the dry discussions about the theory of so-and-so quickly end, leaving 200+ plages of fascinating animal behavior. FYI: When I bought this book, I also bought David Attenborough's "Life of Mammals," which ended up being a great help since "Life of Mammals" has beautiful color pictures and descriptions of many of the animals that "Becoming" talks about, like macaques (which I had never heard of before).

Almost every living creature has the ability to learn in some form or fashion. Imitation, trial and error, conditioning, play, and observation are just a few of the different types of learning that McCarthy covers through anecdotes and research results. From birds to primates to lowly worms, the methods and reasons that different animals learn what they need to survive proves to be a fascinating topic. Animals clearly have both innate behaviors and learned behaviors and it's very interesting to see where the two intersect. Becoming a Tiger is broadly broken out into chapters that cover different areas important to survival: knowing your species, what and how to eat, how to get around, how not to be eaten, who makes a good mate, and so forth. It's fairly humbling to find out just how many types of animals use tools, since that used to be a benchmark for human and then primate supremacy. Many of the stories from rehabilitators and field researches are very touching. It's nice that McCarthy tries to stick with research results from non-harmful scientific studies, and when she does reference an older, less-humane study she does so apologetically. McCarthy's sense of humor shines through in wry asides and tongue-in-cheek chapter headings. Her writing style is easy to follow, even when she delves now and then into scientific terminology. While chatty in tone and geared towards the general reader, McCarthy backs up her information with impressive sections of notes and bibliography. Her passion for the subject shines through and makes this a highly recommended read for anyone interested in learning or animals.

Ms McCarthy assembled this book based on research about animal learning patterns. Most of this research is based on readings of scientific reports and journals and some is based on her conversations with experts in various animal-related fields. The result is a compendium of anecdotes and excerpts rendered into a witty and accessible form for the layperson. Normally, scientific literature can be pretty arcane and not exactly snappy reading. Ms. McCarthy flavors her excerpts with witty parenthetical commentary and questions that, in no way, detract from the matter at hand. She covers not just tigers, but birds (her favorite seems to be a very clever parrot species called the kea), primates, and other mammals. She describes interesting stories about how young animals practice behavior when no one is looking (such as baby birds who test vocalize sotto voce), animal cultures (where one troop of primates would suddenly start performing some behaviors while other troops would not), and how animals need to see members of their own kind in order to socialize and mate later on.

If you've ever encountered Susan McCarthy's witty articles on Salon, you won't be surprised to hear that her new book is both deeply informative and irresistably entertaining. If you're new to McCarthy's work, you have a special treat awaiting you. I have given copies of this book to five different people--ranging from an 11-year-old boy to a woman who just celebrated her 87th birthday. All have loved it.