Book Report: Animals In Translation

Grandin, Temple. Animals In Translation. Scribner, New York. Harcourt Books: 2005

I ended up choosing Animals In Translation because it was one of the books that was supposed to be read over the summer for my english class, but I never got around to read it and I decided that now was a good time. The book doesnt take place in any particular time but is about the recent history of autism and how animals think the way people with autism think.

The book is mainly about Temple Grandin and how she has helped various people that work with animals whether it be farms or for meat products, or veterinary care help better treat and raise animals using her handicap/benefit of autism which helps her think like an animal would.

Temple Grandin, who is the the writer of the story as well as the main character is a very interesting person. The book giving the reader what she is thinking is completely from the norm. Her with autism gives a focus to a lot of precise detail and not the bigger picture in a sense that would be normal to an average person. Using autism, she finds out that many animals that seem to behave poorly or is very aggressive is mainly because of the environment and misunderstanding of animals from other people.

I overall liked the book because it was a compelling story that was a first time for me. One downside though was that for some parts of the book it was INCREDIBLY slow and boring to get through but in the end it was understandable, and this book really reminds me of the previous book I read, "Thinking Big" by Ben Carson just because of the insight the author provides throughout his own book and Temple Grandin seems to do that to some degree in her book as well.

Temple Grandin is a Ph.D. animal scientist and is reknown for being a gifted scientist in her field as well as designing one third of all live stock handling facilities in America and has even designed her own method for animal well-being. She wrote one other book that is a direct autobiography of her and her life with Autism titled "Thinking in Pictures".