BOOKS: Gifts That Save The Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Gifts That Save The Animals:
1001 great gifts sold by nonprofits
that protect animals, by Ellen Berry.
Foxglove Publishing (POB 292500, Dayton, OH
45429), 1995. $9.95, 410 pages, paperback.

Currently a substantial purse-sized paperback,
Gifts That Save The Animals could and should be expanded
into a lavishly illustrated catalog, supported by full-color ads
from the many animal-related charities whose fundraising
merchandise author Ellen Berry describes. Any organization
that wouldn’t advertise just doesn’t understand merchandising.
If it had attractive illustrations and order blanks to help,
I might do most of my holiday shopping with this volume in
hand; since it doesn’t, I’ll probably turn to catalogs from
for-profit mail-order stores instead.

Berry’s sweep is both impressive and uniquely
egalitarian. Local cat rescue societies, animal rights groups,
zoos and aquariums, and multinational NGOs all get space
according to what they offer. The indexing permits shopping
by name of group, kind of animal one is concerned about, or
type of gift one seeks.
But two animal-related gifts of note don’t get a
plug. One is a gift subscription to ANIMAL PEOPLE. The
other is the gift of this book.