by Roberta Kalechofsky
Micah Publications, Inc.,
Marblehead, Mass., 1995, $8.00, 50 pages.
reviewed
by Richard H. Schwartz
The vegetarian cause is buttressed
by many powerful facts and statistics relating
the production and consumption of animal products
to human diseases, the mistreatment of animals,
the destruction of ecosystems, the waste of resources,
and spreading hunger. While arguments based on
this data are valuable and have undoubtedly contributed
to convincing some people to becoming vegetarians,
progress has been slow, and the vast majority
of people still eat animal-centered diets. Wee
also need other approaches, such as books that
show the personal aspects of vegetarianism, that
appeal to our emotions as well as to our intellect,
and that help to overcome the rationalizations
that people use to justify their dietary habits.
Roberta Kalechofsky's A Boy,
A Chicken, and The Lion of Judah - How Ari Became
a Vegetarian is such a book. It provides a
powerful vegetarian message while probing the
human condition. Although I have read many books
on vegetarianism, this is the only one that brought
tears to my eyes. This occurred as often during
my second reading as during my first reading.
Ari, a nine year old boy who lives
in the Negev Highlands in Israel with his parents,
has a "secret misery", and initially
there is no one to answer his questions or to
understand his wretchedness. Because of the strong
bond that he has developed with his pet hen, Tk
Tk, Ari has decided that he wants to become a
vegetarian, but he hesitates to tell his parents
to avoid hurting their feelings. He wonders how
his parents can be so actively involved in protest
demonstrations to protect the environment, and
yet be so oblivious to the daily cruelty in the
nearby chicken coop and the treatment of geese
when their livers are fattened to make pate de
fois gras. He doesn't understand how they can
be so concerned about saving "the birds in
the air" while serving the chickens that
were raised in cages for dinner. He doesn't comprehend
his "purification ritual" of washing
meat in a saucer before eating it, an activity
that his grandmother, who is convinced that Ari
needs to eat meat in order to be "strong
and healthy", considers a "disgusting
habit". Ari suffers because he doesn't have
what psychoanalyst Erich Fromm called a "socially
patterned defect" that would have enabled
him to be like almost everyone else, blind to
the moral inconsistencies related to their diets.
How Ari discovers others who are
vegetarians, overcomes his aloneness and alienation,
comes to "own his own stomach", gains
his parents' understanding, and much more, is
told with sensitivity and compassion in this wonderful
book. Readers will be left with much to ponder
with regard to their eating habits and their relationships
with other people and non-human animals. While
the book is aimed at children 7 to 10 years of
age, based on my experience and the responses
of other adults that I have shared it with, How
Ari Became a Vegetarian provides adventurous,
thought-provoking reading for people of all ages.
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Micah Publications, Inc. can be
contacted at 255 Humphrey Street, Marblehead,
MA 10945,
or via Email: micah@micahbooks.com
