Young adult novel about teenagers who liberate baboons
I’m a bit behind with reviews (how is it already February?!) but this was on my Short Stack Reading Challenge list. This looks like it was another find from the Canberra Lifeline Book Fair (which is on this weekend for its 50th birthday and given the circumstances really needs everyone’s support). Anyway, my friend has been telling me I really need to read this author, so I was ready to give it a try.
“Papio” by Victor Kelleher is a young adult novel about David, a white Australian teenager, and Jem, an African-American teenager, who both live in Central Africa. David develops an affinity for the baboons kept at a nearby experimental research station, especially a large male called Papio and a female called Upi. When it becomes clear that the baboons are not going to leave the facility alive, David convinces Jem to help him break the baboons out and release them to the wild. However, the baboons struggle to survive in the wild and have not yet found a troop to join. When David and Jem stay longer and longer, it becomes clear that there is more at stake than Papio and Upi’s survival in the wild. Soon, all their lives are at stake.
This was an intense and realistic book that explores the limits of what it takes to survive in the wilderness. Kelleher doesn’t shy from the grittier details like hunger and illness, and the gradual acceptance of the group with a troop of baboons was one of the most interesting parts of the book. I really enjoyed the exploration of baboon behaviour. Certainly I had always had this idea that they are quite an aggressive species, but this book really showed me another side to baboons and the different ways they interact with humans and the encroachment on their habitat.
I think the part I had difficulty with was the thought processes of David and Jem. I couldn’t quite understand why Jem so easily went along with David’s plans, especially when it became clear he had concealed a lot from her. I also couldn’t quite understand how they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see the anger they had brought upon the baboons, and that especially towards the end, their actions were leading everyone to disaster.
An interesting and morally provoking story.
Tinted Edges 