'There are two basic types of animal in Nature's Kingdom. The first, like lions and turtles, produce many offspring and simply hope that some will survive. The second, like elephants and people, produce one or two at long intervals and make great efforts to rear them. My mother belonged in a class of her own. She produced two at short intervals and made no effort to rear them whatsoever.'
Thus Dorothy, aged ten, finds herself making her own way in Sassaspaneck, New York in 1968. Her English father, who never talks above a whisper due to a youthful injury with a cricket ball, has tucked her and her mother away where the potential for embarrassment can be limited. All the other children in town have gone to camp, so Dorothy must provide her own entertainment, and this she does when she comes across a small, faded zoo on the outskirts of town.
'Whistling For The Elephants' is the story of a bunch of women, a young girl, two elephants and a parrot. And as Dorothy begins to get to know the eccentric group of women who live at the zoo, and the rest of the townfolk, she begins to discover a world way beyond the one she has glimpsed so far.
