I hate to witness animals in captivity - or see circus elephants paraded down the streets. When animals are caged, it's a loss of what they are.
What do we lose without wild animal acts at the circus? Absolutely nothing, except the opportunity to be haunted and heartbroken.
One of the reasons I love writing for middle graders, besides their voracious appetite for books, is their deep concern for fairness and morality.
That penetrating gaze, that intelligence; it's hard not to be anthropomorphic when you're looking at a great ape - at any primate - but especially with gorillas. They're just so magnificent.
It occurred to me that a food drive would be a natural way to talk to kids about hunger, which so many of them simply aren't aware of.
When I was a child, going to a circus with wild animal acts was a rite of passage. These days, it's an act of complicit cruelty.