Living Free: The Story of Elsa and Her Cubs

By: Joy Adamson

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Synopsis: Even more fascinating than the beloved best seller Born Free is this absorbing story of how Elsa, the world-famous lioness, raised her three cubs in the African bush with the help of her devoted friends, Joy and George Adamson. This stirring story of the cubs' first year of life reveals an unusually rewarding relationship between animals and humans that dissolves the barriers between the two worlds. For although the cubs--impish Jespah, jealous Gopa, and timid Little Elsa--romp through these pages with carefree abandon, the adults--the Adamsons and Elsa--must contend with the ever-present menaces of the wild-charging buffaloes, crocodiles lurking in the shallows, marauding elephants, hostile lions, and, most treacherous of all, enraged African poachers out gunning for Elsa's hide. And Elsa herself must juggle three roles: the cubs' vigilant mother, the Adamsons' touchingly affectionate friend, and the primitive mate of a wild lion. Joy Adamson's sensitive appreciation and concern for all living things, and the remarkably intimate view of Elsa's life with her cubs, give the reader a rare sense of participation in life in the wild. As Sir Julian Huxley points out in his introduction, this unique record of an astonishingly personal relationship between humans and animals makes this book scientifically significant, as well as an intensely moving revelation of human experience.