Moto and Me

This is one of the best animal books I've read in a long time. It's a wonderful story about a serval (Moto) in the wild, who needs help. Beautifully written and full of photos, this is a perfect read for elementary children. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone!

My daughter is a wild cat fan, so this is what prompted me to request this from NetGalley. I loved this book. I loved the story which was both entertaining and educational and I loved the photography. The author is right on target with the message of preserving wildlife without being preachy. It's easy to read for a 3-5th grade reader. I highly recommend this book.

(Thanks, NetGalley!) This is the most adorable book I've ever read. Definitely a good book for kids who have cats or who want them - we get to see Moto's journey from a poor orphan kitten to a strong, independent Serval. We also see how Suzi grows to love little Moto but also has to let him return to the wild. Also, the photographs are so, so, so cute. Worth it for those kitten pictures alone.

While living on Masai Mara wildlife reserve in Kenya, wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas was asked by the rangers if she’d like to serve as a foster mom for a serval kitten hopelessly separated from its mother during a wildfire. The baby serval wouldn’t be a pet, the goal would be for her to raise the little wildcat to be able to live on its own in the wild. Suzi took on the task and tells readers how she raised Moto to be a wild serval, explaining about serval life along the way, and providing lots adorable photographs of Moto as he grew up with her.

Gaahh!!! Warning: Cuteness overload! Moto is so fluffy and photogenic…you just want to fuzzle his big ears. Despite the abundant cuteness and love for Moto, Suzi makes it clear that he is also a wild animal, though. There’s a healthy balance of adoration and respect in this. The text is written in easy to understand language and engaging language, perfect for even lower elementary readers. But the topic is plenty intriguing, and the text is engaging enough that older readers should enjoy this too. Suzi shares enough you get the picture that this wasn’t a job she took lightly, it was definitely demanding, though it had perks, and also that it involved a fair amount of research and knowledge to do well. It’s a realistic look into wildlife care as well as providing some great scientific info on servals. I can see several future animal workers/photographers being launched on the path to their future careers by Moto’s story. Highly recommended for animal lovers, those studying African animals, cat lovers, when discussing how to care for wild creatures, and kids looking for an engaging nonfiction read. Definitely will be purchasing a copy or even two for our school, and I’ll probably be gifting this to some cat-loving young family members too.

I'm going to give you three good reasons why you're going to go buy this book.

1. A portion of the royalties from sales of the book will be donated to the Mara Conservancy to help protect Moto's home.

2. LOOK AT THIS FACE.

3. LOOK AT IT.

Now that I've clearly and concisely argued my point.

This book is amazing. Told quickly and effectively, as all children's nonfiction needs to be, it's the story of the world's most flippin' adorable baby serval, and the year Suzi Eszterhas spent fostering him while taking photographs in the wild in Kenya.

The story of Mama Serval having to leave her baby behind is literally like two paragraphs and I was tearing up. I'm so soft. Maybe if I couldn't see the baby face, it would've been easier to handle.

So much can be learned about wild animals in these few pages, and it's just such a sweet, fun story. Kids will be wondering about Moto, running in the wild and making new adorable fluffy faced bitey babies.

Moto and Me, a personal inside look at an animal rescuer and the Serval that she raises to return to the wild is the first book by Suzi Eszterhas for me to have read. To say it is wonderful or amazing is an understatement. The text and illustrations give the reader insight not only to the Serval cat but to the author as well.

It conveys the feelings of a foster animal mom with the “wildness” of the African Masai Mara’s savanna. Fantastic photographs with open, honest details that would delight young readers as well as older; it is simply beautifully done. As having thirty years in elementary education, I believe this is one of the best children’s animal nonfiction books I have ever read.

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I was pleasantly surprised at how much I really absolutely adored this narrative.

Moto and Me: My Year as a Wildcat's Foster Mom, by Suzi Eszterhas is an intriguing and informative book, which portrays a rare wildlife rescue story.

With full-color photographs featured throughout this book, Moto and Me focuses on the firsthand story of Eszterhas, a wildlife photographer, caring for an orphaned wildcat--serval--at the age of two weeks. Plus, there's a list of interesting facts titled All about Servals.

According to the book summary, "The book chronicles Suzi's tender care of Moto, including how she feeds, bathes, and plays with him, and helps him develop hunting skills. Her goal is to help him learn how to survive on his own in the wild. After six months, he is ready to live--a difficult good-bye, but exactly what Suzi had worked for."

While featuring brilliant full-color photographs, Moto and Me is a delightful forty page non-fiction book, and it's geared toward children, particularly grades one to six.


Note: I received this book from NetGalley, which is a program designed for bloggers to write book reviews in exchange for books, yet the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Author: Suzi Eszterhas
Ages 6-9 / Grades 1-3
Genre: Nonfiction
Grade Range: 2–6
Fountas & Pinnell: P
Lexile: 860L

“Moto and Me” is the true story of a wildlife photographer’s experience serving as a serval’s (a small spotted wildcat) foster mom. A wildfire separated Moto from his littermates, so he was taken to a wildlife reserve. The book chronicles Moto’s development and the steep learning curve of teaching the kitten to survive in the wild. Suzi Eszterhas masterfully combines stunning photos and colloquial language to invite readers on her journey. Children will love watching Moto mature across the pages! The back of the book includes facts about the serval cat and its region.

Adorable memoir about a wildlife photographer who nurses and orphaned wildcat. If the story doesn't melt your heart, the photos of the adorable kitty will!

Young readers will go wild for Moto. (5 stars)

I'm always on the lookout for non-fiction books about animals to share with the students in the 2nd grade classroom where I work. They are voracious readers in general but they seem to especially enjoy reading about animals, rescues in particular. I wish I'd received a print review copy just so I could have shared this one with them, without a doubt this would be a favorite. Moto is so cute and his story shows how important it is for baby animals to be with their mothers. I also found it to be an exciting way to learn how much work caring for an animal is as well as what happens when a wild animal is rehabilitated and able to return to their natural life cycle.

With lovely photographs and fascinating facts I think this would be great for children in the 2nd-4th grade levels. Even as an adult I enjoyed it.

I felt like Moto was my own kitten as I read his story and saw the photographs.

Goodreads Rating: 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5
NetGalley Rating: 5 stars

I’ve known about Eszterhas’s work since I was a kid from her frequent photographs in “Ranger Rick” magazine, so I was excited to see this book! Her photographs always capture an animal’s personality incredibly well and the photos here are no different. Moto is delightfully adorable as a kitten and very regal and proud in his adult pictures.

This was a short, heartwarming memoir for kids about her time raising an orphaned serval kitten, Moto. She provides a page for each major milestone in her journey in caring for Moto, from learning what to bottle feed him, to letting him roam free and explore. Eszterhas blends her experiences and facts about servals into the narrative very smoothly and the picture-to-word ratio is excellent.

Although it’s billed as a kids book, it would make a lovely read for someone of any age who like wildlife and/or cats.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy to review!

Moto and Me: My Year as a Wildcat's Foster Mom by Suzi Eszterhas is a children's non fiction book. It tells the firsthand story of wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas’s care for an orphaned baby serval (a small, spotted wildcat) in Kenya. When a grass fire separates the serval from his family, a ranger asks Suzi, who is living in a bush camp and is skilled with animals, to be the serval’s foster mom. The book chronicles Suzi’s tender care of Moto, including how she feeds, bathes, and plays with him, and helps him develop hunting skills. Her goal is to help him learn how to survive on his own in the wild. After 6 months, he is ready to leave—a difficult good-bye, but exactly what Suzi had worked for.

Moto and Me is a story that combines emotion and information to nearly perfect effect. I enjoyed reading about the attachment and struggles Suzi faced in balancing the love she had for little Moto with her goal to help him grow up to be able to fend for himself. It was interesting to see how serval are both similar and different from the domestic cats that have always been a part of my life. The photographs of Moto's journey were simply beautiful and the icing on the cake. The information about how servals live, and how we can support the survival of the species was an important bonus. I think that the fact that the proceeds of the books sales going toward protecting the preserve where Moto now lives is a wonderful touch and makes me even more eager to get my hands on a paper (rather than digital) copy.

Moto and Me is a good combination of information and heart warming story. I loved learning more about how a serval grows, and how Suzi lived in Kenya. I need to buy this book for my daughter, who is still determined to live much like Suzi did in Kenya in order to care for wild animals.

This book took me back to my childhood of imagining I was an adult, living in an exotic place, with exotic animals as my pets/friends.

The author lived it folks! And because she's a wildlife photographer, the pictures in this book are adorable and gorgeous. I could seriously be happy with a book of just her pictures from her time in Africa. I wish there were some other pictures of what she described too, not just of Moto, but the pictures of him were great, so no huge complaints here.

The wording was a little on the simple side, but the target audience is younger readers, so it makes sense and isn't insulting to them or older readers.

I highly recommend this book for the budding animal lover you know, especially if they like the cat family. My inner little girl is jumping up and down, squealing and clapping her hands right now. 5 animal loving stars all the way!

My thanks to NetGalley and Owlkids Books for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

Suzi Eszterhas  is a wildlife photographer on the Masai Mara Preserve in Kenya. Suzi is asked if she would like to foster an serval kitten that was brought in by a tourist group after a fire. Suzi readily accepts and takes on the additional role of wildlife rehabilitator to Moto, the serval.  As Moto's adopted mother, Suzi must learn how to care for Moto and teach him how to be a serval in the wild, just like Moto's real mom would have done so he can go back to the wild once more.  

Moto and me is a fun and informative inside look at wildlife rehabilitation and the life of a serval.  This nonfiction book is aimed at children aged 5-10.  The pictures were all very cute and obviously amazing, taken by Suzi herself.  They documented Moto's life with her from kittenhood to an adult cat and give readers a chance to see Moto learning how to be a Serval as well as techniques that Suzi used in Moto's rehabilitation.  Along with this are great lessons about African animals, life cycles and the importance of leaving wildlife in the wild.  

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.