“While her hus­band, Fred, spent his days work­ing at the Bronx Zoo in the 1940s, Helen Mar­ti­ni longed for a baby. When Fred comes home with a baby one day — a neglect­ed lion cub — it’s not the kind Helen antic­i­pat­ed, but she imme­di­ate­ly takes the cub in her arms, names him MacArthur, and gives him round-the-clock care. And like many proud mamas, Helen doc­u­ments his “firsts” and over­looks the chewed-up shoes and ripped couch for lap snug­gles. All seems well in the sto­ry­like nar­ra­tive and endear­ing, pat­terned illus­tra­tions that reflect both the col­ors and cul­ture of the time peri­od and the range of emo­tions felt by Helen, espe­cial­ly when MacArthur is tak­en away to anoth­er zoo. After nur­tur­ing more babies at home, this time tiger cubs, and anoth­er dif­fi­cult good­bye, Helen begins to tend to their needs direct­ly at the zoo. She takes moth­er­ing oth­er baby ani­mals into her own hands, secret­ly cre­at­ing a nurs­ery in an aban­doned build­ing. When zoo offi­cials dis­cov­er her enter­prise, they sur­pris­ing­ly approve, and Helen becomes the first female zookeep­er at the Bronx Zoo. A con­clud­ing note pro­vides more infor­ma­tion about this ground­break­ing fig­ure and explains how, like Helen, women of this era some­times had to find qui­et ways to break soci­etal and gen­der norms. A charm­ing reflec­tion of courage and change.” (Book­list, starred review)