Product Description

From one of the world's best loved storytellers, the trilogy that began with City of the Beasts comes to a thrilling climax. Alexander Cold knows all too well his grandmother Kate is never far from an adventure. When National Geographic commissions her to write an article about the first elephant-led safaris in Africa, they head -- with Nadia Santos and the magazine's photography crew -- to the blazing, red plains of Kenya. Days into the tour, a Catholic missionary approaches the camp in search of his companions who have mysteriously disappeared. Kate, Alexander, Nadia, and their team, agreeing to aid the rescue, enlists the help of a local pilot to lead them to the swampy forests of Ngoube. There they discover a clan of Pygmies who unveil a harsh and surprising world of corruption, slavery, and poaching. Alexander and Nadia, entrusting the magical strengths of Jaguar and Eagle, their totemic animal spirits, launch a spectacular and precarious struggle to restore freedom and return leadership to its rightful hands. The final instalment of Isabel Allende's celebrated trilogy soars with radiant settings, spirits, beings -- and the transformation of an extraordinary friendship.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56558 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-05
• Original language: Spanish
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
Praise for City of the Beasts: 'Written with Allende's characteristic verve, City of the Beasts is the kind of accomplishment to show young readers that there's more to life than Harry Potter.' Literary Review 'A vivid fable! Allende's prose soars' Guardian 'Marvellous, marvel-filled! Beautifully written and utterly entrancing' Independent on Sunday Praise for Kingdom of the Golden Dragon: 'Allende again proves her talent for evoking exotic landscapes, spinning tall stories and weaving seductive magic.' Sunday Times 'This spellbinding novel, like its predecessor, is storytelling at its best' Mail on Sunday

About the Author
Isabel Allende was born in 1942, and is the niece of Salvador Allende, who went on to become famous as the elected President of Chile deposed in a CIA-backed coup. She worked as a journalist, playwright and children's writer in Chile until 1974 and then in Venezuela until 1984. Her first novel for adults, 'The House of the Spirits', was published in Spanish in 1982, beginning life as a letter to her dying grandfather. It was an international sensation, and ever since all her books have been acclaimed and adored in numberless translations worldwide.

Customer Reviews

Truly Magical
One need only look at the artwork of this book to be enraptured, and led into the world of Isabel Allende's fathomless imagination. From her debut, The House of the Spirits, Allende has kept magical realism alive in literature with her myriad of wild and wacky characters, living their legacies of love and loss. In this book, the third of a trilogy, Allende whisks us off to the forrest of Ngobe where Alex and his fellow adventurer are inevitably confronted with a multitude of dangers. This book is recommended for children, but I am 27 and was excited, frightened and amazed all the way through. Forest of the Pygmies is a beautiful journey into the heart of a foreign land, told by an amazingly imaginaive, profound and humane writer.

Truly magical, and the best of the trilogy.

forest of the pygmies
Forest of the Pygmies
Allende is one of my favourite writers for adult books but i found her series of three childrens books and in browsing them I couldnt put them down myself- so i bought copies for our house for visiting children to read but also sent copies to my neices ( 8 & 10 yrs) who are avid readers, and they can't put them down either. Thank you Isabelle

Not as good as the two previous books in the trilogy
I enjoyed City Of The Beasts and Kingdom Of The Golden Dragon hugely, and this is the third book that follows the story of Alex Cold and his friend Nadia. However, I didn't enjoy it as much as its predecessors. For a start, it was shorter than the other two and lacked a certain magical mystery, that the others had. The flowery description of how every living organism is bound together by a cosmic force was nice to read, but mostly the story felt bland.

What annoyed me about this book the most were the mistranslations and the errors. For a start, the translator had the irritating habit of using 'terrorized' instead of 'terrified'. This quibble sounds pedantic but if you consider the words in context, they actually have quite different meanings and the error was repeated many times during the course of the book. The worst mistake by far is when a crocodile is referred to as an amphibian in the narrative. It's a mistake even a child could spot and I don't see how the translator could have caused it, so it must have been Allende's fault (and her editor's for not spotting it). Perhaps she should do her research more thoroughly?