Join us to discuss this month'\;s Beyond Fiction Book Club selection\, \;The Zookeepers'\; War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War \;by J.W. Mohnhaupt. Books will be available to check out at the Adult Help Desk beginning July 27. \;If you need help acquiring a book\, please reach out to Jill Morino at jmorino@wauclib.org. \;
\n\nWe look forward to reading and discussing with you!
\n\n\n\nThe unbelievable true story of the Cold War&rsquo\;s strangest proxy war \, fought between the zoos on either side of the Berlin Wall.
\n\n&ldquo\;The liveliness of Mohnhaupt&rsquo\;s storytelling and the wonderful eccentricity of his subject matter make this book well worth a read.&rdquo\; &mdash\; Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
\n\nLiving in West Berlin in the 1960s often felt like living in a zoo\, everyone packed together behind a wall\, with the world always watching. On the other side of the Iron Curtain\, East Berlin and its zoo were spacious and lush\, socialist utopias where everything was perfectly planned... and then rarely completed.
\n\nBerlin&rsquo\;s two zoos in East and West quickly became symbols of the divided city&rsquo\;s two halves. And so no one was terribly surprised when the head zookeepers on either side started an animal arms rather than stockpiling nuclear warheads\, they competed to have the most pandas and hippos. Soon\, state funds were being diverted toward giving these new animals lavish welcomes worthy of visiting dignitaries. West German presidential candidates were talking about zoo policy on the campaign trail. And eventually politicians on both side of the Wall became convinced that if their zoo were proved to be inferior\, then that would mean their country&rsquo\;s whole ideology was too.
\n\nA quirky piece of Cold War history unlike anything you&rsquo\;ve heard before\, \;The Zookeepers&rsquo\; War \;is an epic tale of desperate rivalries\, human follies\, and an animal-mad city in which zookeeping became a way of continuing politics by other means.
\n LOCATION:Wauconda Area Public Library 801 N. Main St. Wauconda\, IL 60084 UID:e.2057.21583 SEQUENCE:3 DTSTAMP:20260509T072511Z URL:https://business.waucondachamber.org/events/details/beyond-fiction-book-club-the-zookeepers-war-by-j-w-mohnhaupt-21583 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR