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by Boomert - Elephant Dance by Tammie Matson 12 Jan 2010
Tammie Matson’s Elephant Dance is a personal memoir of an Australian conservationist in Africa, and her professional and personal journeys both there and in Australia. What some will enjoy about this book is also the aspect that might turn other readers off. Matson doesn’t only focus on the conservation problems she faces in Africa, but offers her own personal feelings and experiences as well. At many times, reading Elephant Dance feels like reading a personal diary, filled with observations of both the exterior and Matson’s interior landscapes. Certainly she addresses the many concerns conservationists have regarding climate change, animal-human conflict, and always the lack of funding and awareness for these issues, but she also speaks of falling in and out of love, her own hopes for the future, and the dichotomy she faces between African and Australian lifestyles. Readers might find these personal tangents distracting and unnecessary, as they affect the chronology of the book, making the narrative a little jumpy, and the ending feel brief. However, Matson has a wonderfully engaging and easy writing style, and my overall impression is of a joyful, appealing experience, if not the serious callto- arms that some may have wished it to be.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine (October 2009, Vol 89, No. 3) is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Author Biography: Tammie Matson
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