My Backyard Jungle

February 4, 2013
At the beginning of this book, Barilla, who teaches creative nonfiction and environmental writing at the University of South Carolina and formerly worked in wildlife research and management, describes the process by which his yard received certification from the National Wildlife Federation as a wildlife-friendly habitat. Fortunately, relatively little of this book deals with local phenomena. Barilla goes very far afield to look at such fauna issues as the “monkey menace” in New Delhi, India, the attempt to contain the growing bear population in and around Northampton, Mass., the work of urban beekeepers in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the struggle for survival of marmosets in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In a chapter on a possible infestation of his home by rats or squirrels, Barilla relates his very human desire to contain such “night visitors” and describes the traps used to eliminate rodents. More often, though, his focus is on the “zooopolis”: the intersection of, and uneasy accommodation between, the human and animal realms. Barilla is a fine stylist—his writing is thoughtful, colorful, and sometimes wittily self-deprecating—who helps us to better understand the unfamiliar natural world near our homes and to realize how many habitats coexist on Earth. Agent: Wendy Strothman, the Strothman Agency.

March 1, 2013
A naturalist's account of how turning his backyard into a certified wildlife habitat inspired him to explore "the limits of coexistence" more globally. After he and his family bought their first house, Barilla (Creative Nonfiction and Environmental Writing/Univ. of South Carolina) wanted a way to proclaim that he "had become a stakeholder" in ongoing efforts to maintain animal habitat integrity. So he certified his yard as "wildlife-friendly" with the National Wildlife Federation. In a gesture that declared his new rootedness to place, Barilla planted apple, pear and peach trees in his yard; soon, bees and fruit-raiding birds and squirrels began to converge. He learned that being part of an ecosystem--rather than its overseer--meant finding oneself "jostled and threatened" and one's "belongings usurped." At the same time, Barilla also began wondering about urban environments elsewhere in the world and how people could maximize the potential of these environments in a future where "over 70% of the human population [would] live in cities." To answer this question, he visited urban areas in Florida, Massachusetts, New York, as well as in Brazil and India, where he observed the relationships between humans and other species. Whether as objects of scorn or intense devotion, animals were universally as fascinating to humans as they could be uncomfortable (or even dangerous) to live with. The challenge was to not only learn to respect them and their right to exist alongside humans, but also to help preserve their integrity as "wild animals [and] not household pets." Barilla's ultimate message is both simple and powerful: To work toward coexistence means setting aside all notions of species-ism and cultivating an open, ecologically aware mind. Intelligent and quietly provocative.

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Starred review from May 15, 2013

Barilla (creative nonfiction & environmental writing, Univ. of South Carolina) takes readers on his personal journey to explore human and animal relationships in shared habitats around the world. To begin with, he had his own property in Columbia, SC, certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a wildlife habitat. In a short introduction, he discusses his motivation, referring to a few internal debates about the decision. He invites readers to contemplate a brief fact he includes at the start of each chapter before they embark on the upcoming pages. Going between his backyard and distant locations, his chapters cover topics from idealized children's toys ("Where are the teeth on those teddy bears?") to the illegal wildlife trade and include his experiences, ideas, education, and appreciation for the discoveries he makes during expeditions. Readers familiar with Bob Tarte's Enslaved by Ducks or Gerald Durrell's classic My Family and Other Animals will appreciate how Barilla also intertwines humor and a great deal of information to provide an enjoyable and enlightening narrative. Notes and a selected bibliography offer readers ample opportunities to learn more. VERDICT Well written and easily accessible to a wide variety of readers, this work is highly recommended for all with an interest in animals and nature.--Kyrille Goldbeck-DeBose, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. & State Univ. Lib., Blacksburg

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February 15, 2013
Barilla's jaunty title and amusing opening pages give the impression that this is a larky tale about a family man conducting a naive ecological experiment when he has his Columbia, South Carolina, property certified as wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. And he does face comical if instructive dilemmas, such as when a wily squirrel eats every peach and nectarine on his newly planted trees and when he has to deal with nuisance wildlife removal. But Barilla has worked with wildlife at Yellowstone and travels far beyond his verdant neighborhood to investigate what exactly is at stake in interactions between humans and wildlife in our ever-more-crowded world. He discovers surprising facts about urban bees and peregrine falcons; chronicles with humor and arresting scientific and social insights his unnerving encounters with urban monkey troops in Florida, India, and Brazil; and reports on a backyard bear patrol in Massachusetts. Ultimately, Barilla's gripping and provocative dispatches confirm that in our time, human and wildlife coexistencea formula for awe, danger, and controversyis a complex process of trial and error.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)