Trailblazers: Jane Goodall: A Life with Chimps

By Anita Ganeri

Bring history home and meet some of the world's greatest game changers! Get inspired by the true story of a famous researcher who studied chimpanzees. This biography series is for kids who loved Who Was? and are ready for the next level.

In July 1960, Jane Goodall went into the wilderness in Tanzania to study chimpanzees. For years she camped out with the chimps, observing their behavior and making amazing discoveries! Jane had always been fascinated by animals and knew she wanted to make learning more about them her life's work. Find out how this girl who loved animals became one of history's greatest trailblazers!

Trailblazers is a biography series that celebrates the lives of amazing pioneers, past and present, from all over the world. Get inspired by more Trailblazers: Neil Armstrong, Jackie Robinson, Jane Goodall, Harriet Tubman, Albert Einstein, Beyoncé, and Simone Biles. What kind of trail will you blaze?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Children's Books
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780593124123

Anita Ganeri

Anita Ganeri is an award-winning author of information books for children. Educated at Cambridge University, she has written more than 300 books, including the best-selling 'Horrible Geography' series (Scholastic Children's Books) which won a 2009 Blue Peter Book Award. She writes widely on animals and the natural world. A recent title for Raintree, A Day in the Life of Rainforest Animals: Capybara, has been shortlisted for a Maryland Blue Crab Award 2012. Anita lives in the north of England with her husband, children and assorted pets.

Book preview

Cover for Trailblazers: Jane GoodallTrailblazers

Neil Armstrong

Jackie Robinson

Harriet Tubman

Jane Goodall

Book title, Trailblazers: Jane Goodall, subtitle, A Life with Chimps, author, Anita Ganeri, imprint, Random House Books for Young Readers

Text copyright © 2019 by Anita Ganeri

Cover art copyright © 2019 by Luisa Uribe and George Ermos

Interior illustrations copyright © 2019 by Artful Doodlers

Trailblazers logo design by Mike Burroughs

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Neil Armstrong text copyright © 2019 by Alex Woolf

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Neil Armstrong illustrations copyright © 2019 by Artful Doodlers

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Jackie Robinson text copyright © 2019 by Kurtis Scaletta

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Jackie Robinson illustrations copyright © 2019 by Artful Doodlers

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Harriet Tubman text copyright © 2019 by Sandra A. Agard

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Harriet Tubman illustrations copyright © 2019 by Artful Doodlers

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: Ganeri, Anita, author.

Title: Jane Goodall: a life with chimps / Anita Ganeri.

Description: New York: Random House Children’s Books, 2019. | Series: Trailblazers | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019009349 (print) | LCCN 2019009678 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-12410-9 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 978-0-593-12411-6 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-593-12412-3 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Goodall, Jane, 1934– —Juvenile literature. | Chimpanzees—Research—Juvenile literature. | Women primatologists—England—Biography—Juvenile literature. | Primatologists—England—Biography—Juvenile literature.

Classification: LCC QL31.G58 (ebook) | LCC QL31.G58 G36 2019 (print) | DDC 590.92—dc23

Ebook ISBN 9780593124123

Created by Stripes Publishing Limited, an imprint of the Little Tiger Group

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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Contents

Cover

Other Titles

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Breaking Down Barriers

Chapter 1

A Chimpanzee Named Jubilee

Chapter 2

A Letter from Africa

Chapter 3

Meeting David Greybeard

Chapter 4

Dr. Goodall, I Presume?

Chapter 5

Good Days and Bad Days

Chapter 6

Rescue Mission

Chapter 7

Campaigning for Change

Conclusion

A Better World

Timeline

Further Reading

Glossary

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Neil Armstrong

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Jackie Robinson

Excerpt from Trailblazers: Harriet Tubman

Introduction: Breaking Down Barriers

One November morning in 1960, a young Jane Goodall trudged wearily up a steep hill in Gombe Stream Game Reserve (now known as Gombe Stream National Park), Tanzania. She had been out and about since dawn, looking for chimpanzees in the thick forest that covered the mountain slopes. Frustratingly, she hadn’t seen any signs of them so far, and it was almost midday. Suddenly, she heard rustling in the long grass ahead and spied a large, dark shape. Quickly adjusting her binoculars, she recognized a handsome male chimp she had seen many times before. He was sitting next to a tall, brick-red termite mound, poking a long stalk of grass in and out of a hole. Each time he pulled the stalk out, he picked something off it with his lips.

It looked as if the chimpanzee was using the grass as a tool to fish for termites to eat! Jane knew that she was witnessing something amazing. No one had ever seen this behavior before. No one even knew that chimpanzees used tools—until then, scientists thought only humans did that. The enormity of her discovery took a while to sink in. But what she saw that day in Gombe not only changed her life forever but also changed the course of animal science.

A MAN’S WORLD

So, what had brought Jane Goodall to the African jungle in the first place? As a little girl, her favorite toy was a stuffed chimpanzee called Jubilee. This cuddly companion, together with her love of animal stories, awakened Jane’s interest in wild and faraway places. As she grew older, she began to dream of living and working among animals in Africa. But, at that time, the field of scientific research and exploration was very much a man’s world. As Jane later said, When I was a little girl, I used to dream as a man, because I wanted to do things that women didn’t do back then, such as traveling to Africa, living with wild animals, and writing books.

Jane and her friends were expected not to follow such an adventurous career but to get married and run a home instead. She was even presented to the queen at Buckingham Palace as a debutante. She went to dances and balls, where many of the girls were hoping to meet a husband. Later, Jane remembered being surrounded by girls who asked her if she dreamed of living at the palace and attending on the queen. The other girls were appalled at Jane’s answer: Absolutely not—I want to live among wild animals!

Even when Jane was carrying out her research in Africa, she struggled to be taken seriously, because she was viewed as an unqualified young woman. When her findings made it into the newspapers, the headlines focused on her looks rather than her work. Jane’s discoveries were also severely undermined by academics, who were usually men. Jane hadn’t been to college, they reminded each other, so what did she know about making accurate observations or keeping detailed notes?

She doesn’t have a degree—we can’t believe a word she says!

Many academics also criticized her research methods while she was out in the field. When Jane began work at Gombe, there had only been one short study of chimpanzees in the wild. Very little was known about them. Jane took a new, creative approach to her work. Rather than watching the chimpanzees from afar in a cold, clinical way, she spent hours among them, getting to know their habitat, personalities, emotions, and lives. To form a closer bond, Jane gave the chimpanzees names instead of numbers, going against the thinking of the day. Many scientists were horrified. They disapproved of giving animals humanlike qualities, but Jane was determined that each chimpanzee should be recognized as a distinct being. Her way of working brought great rewards. She was able to find out things about chimpanzees that we would never have known otherwise.

Jane came from a family of strong women and had the full support of her mother and grandmothers. In fact, Jane thought that being a woman helped her in some ways. She was able to form good relations with the local people in