Animal safety, species preservation and the protection of the planet are high on my agenda thanks to my veganism, and I have been looking for ways to raise my children’s awareness whilst still being age appropriate.
Tigeropolis- Caught In The Trap is the third book by R.D. Dikstra to be set in the fictional nature park in India. The tigers find themselves hunted by poachers who only regard the beautiful creatures as an opportunity to gain money for their skins.
Luckily, these are no ordinary tigers. They can fly planes. They can talk and plan with other animals to thwart the evil poachers.
The hapless humans are a fun element to the book. Both the park keepers and the poachers are no match for the clever tigers and the unity of the animals is in contrast to the selfishness of the human characters.
There is a real sense of adventure and danger whilst making a serious point about the risks to endangered species due to human greed.
The illustrations really bring the text to life and the young tigers are super cute! I would even say that the pictures give a warmth to the book as some of the scenarios could be a little frightening for younger readers. The friendly looking tigers will be easy for the children to relate to and make their circumstances more dramatic.
The books are aimed at age 7 plus so are perfect for Matthew to read alone and for me to read aloud to Anya. The text is easy to read and engaging.
Book blurb/press release:
Tigeropolis, a vast tiger reserve in the foothills of the Himalayas, is home to a family of vegetarian tigers – tiger cubs Bittu, older sister Matti, their mother Tala and Uncle Raj. For years, they’ve hidden from humans deep in the forest, adopting a modern lifestyle (they don’t hunt, they don’t roar and they live in a snug cave complete with a TV and Internet access!)
Their pleasant lifestyle is interrupted when they are forced to reappear. Tigeropolis is threatened with closure – people have stopped coming – they don’t believe there are any tigers left to see. The tigers know they need to reappear to encourage visitors to the park. Visitors will generate income and help keep the park (their home) open. But the humans ‘running’ the park prefer sitting in their guard-house drinking tea and eating chocolate cake. The tigers take it upon themselves to run
the park, all the while ensuring that the humans never realise who is actually ‘pulling the strings’.
Caught in the Trap is the third in the series, but each book can be read as a stand-alone story.
About the Author
Richard Dikstra is passionate about travel and wildlife having visited all seven continents and some 40-plus countries. His interest in wildlife started on a week-long trip on a cabin cruiser in Alaska’s Inside Passage surrounded by humpback and orca whales. Since that first trip he has, amongst other things, trekked in China in search of pandas, sat with mountain gorillas, camped out in the Canadian tundra watching polar bears, helped save a wounded water buffalo in Swaziland and visited nomadic reindeer herders in Russian’s Chukotka Peninsula.
A keen traveller and wildlife enthusiast, he helped found pioneering travel company Discovery Initiatives, and since 2000 he has been a shareholder and Non-Executive Director of specialist travel operator Steppes Group. In 2010 he produced the First TOFT Tiger Tourism Awards in Delhi – the event is now an established feature in the tiger conservation calendar – and a year later, in 2011, Richard helped set up citizen science site ‘Tiger Nation’.
He wrote the first Tigeropolis book in 2015, inspired by his first ever sighting of a tiger in the wild. The second book was published the following year. The audio book of Tigeropolis is narrated by Richard E Grant and Belle Media produced a tie-in Tigeropolis video game, available on Apple TV and iTunes. Richard also found time to write a lively comic strip series for Hull City football club (‘Tigers’), based on his Tigeropolis characters.
About the Author
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