Children always have a such a good time! They want to touch the dolphins!
How many times have we heard similar words?
But what about dolphins? Do they have fun in dolphinariums? Are we sure?
Who is saying that? Are they? And how do they show us?
With the shape of their jaw that looks like a smile even when the dolphins are suffering?
Even when dolphins end up in the chlorine-filled pool of a dolphinarium after being stolen from their mothers and their family?
A dolphin’s smile never fades, not even when they are sad, when they are sick, when they decide that a life locked up in a swimming pool is no longer worth living.
Precisely because children are particularly sensitive to animal suffering, children understand, and will be happy to read, in this wonderful book written especially for them, that captive dolphins can sometimes go back to their homes in the sea and reunite with their families and friends!
Helene Hesselager O’Barry has published an illustrated book for children,
Squee’s Great Escape. It is the story of a free dolphin who is stolen from the sea, from his mother and his family, to entertain the visitors of a dolphinarium but, thanks to a girl who understands the language of dolphins, his life will change again for the best.
Squee’s Great Escape is also available in Italian:
La Grande Fuga di Squee,
https://tinyurl.com/y5s2h63k
(Italian translation by Oceano Mare translations)
and in Spanish:
La Extraordinaria Fuga de Squee.
https://tinyurl.com/ycyxhzqm
(Spanish translation by Ana MarÃa Pérez Betancour)
Helene O'Barry has been on the front lines against dolphin captivity for decades.
Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, are just some of the places where she has helped and is still helping dolphins.
Her devotion to the dolphins
In the opening lines of her book we understand the importance of freedom, to which all animals are entitled:
I dedicate the story of Squee to all the dolphins I have met, both in the wild and in captivity. In particular, I will always remember those dolphins that I have helped set free, and the joy in their eyes as they returned to their ocean home.
This wonderful book is the perfect chance to teach children that no animal will ever be happy when taken from their home in the wild.