Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds: Stories of Extinction

This beautifully illustrated book serves as much as a simulacrum of private, deeply personal grief and loss as it is a repository of stories and histories. Allen (Broken Heart, Shared Heart, Healing Heart: Navigating the Loss of Your Pet) has created a deliberate, well-documented archive of 31 extinct animal species, from aurochs to quagga, with stories of what they were like in life and how they disappeared. Still, the book is much more than that and includes significant research and meditation on grief processes, especially but not exclusively about extinction. Allen revivifies extinct animals so that, briefly, they seem to breathe, to have voices. In doing so, she highlights the importance of recognizing how situated and contextually dependent knowledge (of self, of others) is and how, through storytelling, people can preserve memories of lost lives along with their grief. In doing so, grief becomes a continually motivating force that deepens commitments to knowledge, advocacy, and change.