Ninety-Five: Meeting America’s Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs, edited and published by No Voice Unheard. 2010.
This spacious, clear, compassionate book about rescued farmed animals offers three experiences you may not get from actually visiting a sanctuary where these animals are kept: a chance to look them in the eyes for an extended period of time, to see examples of every animal Americans commonly eat, and to visit them even in the midst of a city. The large photographs allow you extended closeup eye-to-eye contact, whereas if face-to-face the animal might be farther away, would move about, perhaps turn away. And most sanctuaries would have most but possibly not all of these: chickens, turkeys, pigs, cattle, goats, sheep, ducks, geese, and rabbits. Plus, unlike a rare visit to a sanctuary, by opening the book you can see the animals again anytime and anywhere you want.
Among the sanctuaries and authors featured is Colorado’s own Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, with written contributions from Michele and Chris Alley-Grubb and Joanna Lucas, all of Peaceful Prairie. The short essays on the animals’ behavior are thoughtful and sensitive, but to me the main reason to pick up this book is its photographs: to see, really see, these living animals that remain invisible to most people who encounter them only after they’ve been slaughtered, dismembered and served up on a plate. No other book I know is as effective in allowing the reader to make that connection.
