I checked The Watcher out for my niece. She enjoys non-fiction stories, and she likes animals and science, so I thought she'd enjoy learning about Jane Goodall. She didn't seem all that impressed with The Watcher, however, and when I asked her what she thought of it she said, "It was ok. I liked 365 Penguins better."So what was wrong with The Watcher? Well, first of all, the pictures were cute, but far from realistic, and I think that my niece likes her pictures to be fairly realistic when we read non-fiction stories. We were both disappointed that there wasn't even a photograph of the real Jane Goodall anywhere in the book. A photograph would have gone a long way toward making Jane Goodall a real person to my niece.
Secondly, Jane's story was simplified. The author admits this on the final page of the book, but I felt like in so simplifying Jane's story, a great deal of Jane Goodall was lost. It was a very selective biography--much of the struggle and determination that she must have undergone both personally, and on behalf of chimps was lost. There just wasn't enough feeling to this story to move me or my niece.