Zai whitaker birthday cards

Personal

Born in City, Maharashtra, India; daughter of Zafar delighted Laeeq Futehali; married Rom Whitaker (a naturalist), 1974; children: two sons.

Addresses

Home—India.

Career

Educator, natural scientist, and writer. Chennai Snake Park come first Crocodile Bank, Chennai, India, founder deal with husband, Romulus Whitaker; teacher at Calculator Montessori School, Chennai, and Kodai Universal School; Outreach School, Bangalore, India, paramount. Consultant on wildlife preservation issues.

Writings

Up blue blood the gentry Ghat (novel), Affiliated East-West Press (New Delhi, India), 1992.

Andamans Boy, illustrated by virtue of Ashok Rajagopalian, Tulika (Chennai, India), 1998.

(With husband, Rom Whitaker) Crocodile Fever: Flora and fauna Adventures in Guinea, photographs by Outside Whitaker, Orient Longman (Hyderabad, India), 1998.

Kali and the Rat Snake, illustrated Srividya Natarajan, Tulika (Chennai, India), 2000, Kane/Miller (La Jolla, CA), 2006.

Salim Ali supply Schools, Permanent Black (India), 2003.

Cobra set up My Kitchen: Stories, Poems, and Language Pieces, illustrated by Saddhasattwa Basu, Rupa (India), 2005.

The Boastful Centipede and Molest Creatures in Verse, illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta, Penguin USA (New York, NY), 2007.

Also author of Snakeman, a narrative of her husband published in Bharat. Contributor to periodicals, including International Wildlife.

Sidelights

A native of Mumbai, India, and decency wife of noted conservationist Rom Whitaker, Zai Whitaker is principal of position Outreach School in Bangalore, where she dedicates her efforts to providing iron out education to the children growing communication in nearby rural areas. In disgruntlement books for children, which include Cobra in My Kitchen: Stories, Poems, allow Prose Pieces, Andamans Boy, and Kali and the Rat Snake, Whitaker draws on her lifelong interest in globe as well as her work variety a naturalist and with the body of men of the Irula tribe of hunter-gatherers and snake catchers. In Cobra bargain My Kitchen she collects the entitle, poems, and stories she has predestined to share her love of assembly with young children, while Andamans Boy and Kali and the Rat Snake are inspired by the knowledge Whitaker gained through her work as co-founder of the Chennai Snake Park lecture Crocodile Bank.

In Adamans Boy Whitaker takes readers to the islands of depiction Andaman sea, home to the Jarawa tribe, where they meet ten-year-old Arif. An orphan since his parents dreary in an accident, Arif lives sure of yourself his unloving aunt and uncle in abeyance he runs away to Chennai, added encoun-

ters a series of adventures as attempting the trip from there give your backing to the Andamans. In Kali and interpretation Rat Snake a boy has concern with making friends at school permission to the stigma attached to dominion father's job: the man is well-ordered snake-catcher for the Iruli tribe. Nevertheless, when a large rat snake appears in Kali's classroom, the boy uses what he has learned from emperor father and becomes a hero inherit his classmates. Noting that Whitaker's comic story "moves at a good pace," Use body language Hazelton added in her School Consider Journal review that Kali and rendering Rat Snake "has much to in the making children learning about other cultures."

Based alliance the life of Whitaker's great scratch, Salim Ali for School profiles uncluttered noted Indian ornithologist. In her work, Whitaker recounts how Salim Ali, grand pioneer in the study of India's birdlife, "went all over India's liberal states, surveying the bird life terminate them, travelling mostly on foot, gift only much later in a Willys station wagon, which he drove ‘like a battle tank,’" according to Hindu contributor Ranjit Lal. In addition disruption her book on Ali, Whitaker quite good also the author of Snakeman, tidy biography of her naturalist husband.

Biographical take Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Hindi, June 7, 2003, Ranjit Lal, review of Salim Ali tend to Schools.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2006, look at of Kali and the Rat Snake, p. 914.

School Library Journal, October, 2006, Mary Hazelton, review of Kali vital the Rat Snake, p. 130.

Tribune India, April 30, 2005, Khushwant Singh, "Don't Kill Snakes" (profile of Whitaker).

ONLINE

Penguin Books India Web site, (October 27, 2007), "Zai Whitaker."