Beyond the Bend (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781961532472)

Bequeathed by nature with a survival instinct an animal is most at home in its natural surroundings. Here, it will use its skill and cunning to engage in activities to realise the greatest rewards. But when captured by man and imprisoned in a zoo is its mind also made a prisoner?

Vinny is a street child who is forced to live in the zoo where he finds greater trust among the animals than on the streets of the city where his misfortune began. Winning their warmth and acceptance he soon realizes his unique power to enter their world and experience their past.

Moussa, the lion, brings Africa to life and Vinny learns of the struggles of her people against men who came on tall ships to capture, imprison and haul them away from their motherland.

Raja proves to be a headstrong tiger bent on his own unsubmissive ways. Not the sharing kind his growls are always timed to bring discord at the very moment that Vinny is soothingly drifting away into another world. Kamala, on the other hand, is all elephant ears and takes Vinny on a Shikar in the Maharaja's kingdom to bag Old Stripe himself, as the White Sahib puts it.

In his waking moment Vinny must leave his dreams behind and deal with the real world. He must interact with his own kind and endure the struggles of daily life. Should Vinny leave the zoo and his only true friends and place his trust in man? After all, it was his fellow man who deprived him of a child's happiness.