Published: July 14, 2006
Animals Playing for Their Lives in "The Beast Bowl":
New Book Highlights the Earth's Crisis of Habitat Loss
Terrorism. Hurricanes. Flood. Drought. We strategize ways to engineer solutions that will save our lives and our built world. But what about all the other species on the planet? They don't have engineers. How will they cope? Human activity is the main cause of habitat loss and the biggest threat to wild species. A big part of the solution is raising the awareness of the next generation to the natural world and the problems that world faces.
"We are causing the most significant mass extinctions of plant and animal life since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago", says Tom Chaikin, wildlife activist and author of The Beast Bowl (In Touch Books, June 2006). "My concern is the ever-growing list of endangered species. We need to recognize that we cannot survive as species unless we look out for the other species in the web of life, the animals that surround us and have provided for us since our very beginnings. If we don't, we are as doomed as they are. It's just that simple."
Chaikin's Beast Bowl is a fable for sports fans of all ages. The book tells an engaging story of the oldest annual sporting event in the world, played by animals from the four corners of the earth. And those animals have a lot to say about the condition of their world. "I wanted the animals to be more lifelike, with personalities that weren't so happy-go-lucky but rather raw and unpredictable, like the world they live in," said Chaikin.
Sammy and Carl, a chimpanzee and an African bull elephant, close friends and teammates, set out on a perilous quest into the heart of the civilized world to find a human to coach their football team in the annual Beast Bowl. Because of man's unrelenting lust for control of the planet, the game, like the animals that play it, is in peril of disappearing forever.
Chaikin played football at the University of South Carolina, and the novel is as realistic a portrayal of football and the characters who populate that world as a book full of talking animals can be. "Every young athlete will enjoy reading The Beast Bowl," said Chaikin. "If they take away a new attitude about the world they live in, that's a bonus for all of us.".
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