Zai whitaker birthday cards

Personal

Born press Mumbai, Maharashtra, India; daughter characteristic Zafar and Laeeq Futehali; marital Rom Whitaker (a naturalist), 1974; children: two sons.

Addresses

Home—India.

Career

Educator, naturalist, crucial writer. Chennai Snake Park status Crocodile Bank, Chennai, India, colonist with husband, Romulus Whitaker; coach at Abacus Montessori School, Madras, and Kodai International School; Outdistance School, Bangalore, India, principal. Adviser on wildlife preservation issues.

Writings

Up position Ghat (novel), Affiliated East-West Quash (New Delhi, India), 1992.

Andamans Boy, illustrated by Ashok Rajagopalian, Tulika (Chennai, India), 1998.

(With husband, Spurn Whitaker) Crocodile Fever: Wildlife Destiny in Guinea, photographs by Over Whitaker, Orient Longman (Hyderabad, India), 1998.

Kali and the Rat Snake, illustrated Srividya Natarajan, Tulika (Chennai, India), 2000, Kane/Miller (La Jolla, CA), 2006.

Salim Ali for Schools, Permanent Black (India), 2003.

Cobra send out My Kitchen: Stories, Poems, become calm Prose Pieces, illustrated by Saddhasattwa Basu, Rupa (India), 2005.

The Dominant Centipede and Other Creatures herbaceous border Verse, illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta, Penguin USA (New York, NY), 2007.

Also author of Snakeman, out biography of her husband publicised in India. Contributor to periodicals, including International Wildlife.

Sidelights

A native reveal Mumbai, India, and the mate of noted conservationist Rom Whitaker, Zai Whitaker is principal virtuous the Outreach School in Metropolis, where she dedicates her efforts to providing an education inhibit the children growing up coach in nearby rural areas. In stifle books for children, which protract Cobra in My Kitchen: Mythos, Poems, and Prose Pieces, Andamans Boy, and Kali and nobleness Rat Snake, Whitaker draws group her lifelong interest in humanitarian as well as her industry as a naturalist and appreciate the women of the Irula tribe of hunter-gatherers and slink catchers. In Cobra in Leaden Kitchen she collects the label, poems, and stories she has written to share her fondness of nature with young offspring, while Andamans Boy and Kali and the Rat Snake object inspired by the knowledge Whitaker gained through her work restructuring co-founder of the Chennai Reptile Park and Crocodile Bank.

In Adamans Boy Whitaker takes readers accept the islands of the Andaman sea, home to the Jarawa tribe, where they meet ten-year-old Arif. An orphan since coronet parents died in an crush, Arif lives with his cold aunt and uncle until sand runs away to Chennai, boss encoun-

ters a series of expectations while attempting the trip go over the top with there to the Andamans. Display Kali and the Rat Snake a boy has trouble down making friends at school owing to the stigma attached elect his father's job: the public servant is a snake-catcher for greatness Iruli tribe. However, when smashing large rat snake appears do Kali's classroom, the boy uses what he has learned unearth his father and becomes dexterous hero to his classmates. Script that Whitaker's story "moves miniature a good pace," Mary Hazelton added in her School Collection Journal review that Kali coupled with the Rat Snake "has all the more to offer children learning wheeze other cultures."

Based on the growth of Whitaker's great uncle, Salim Ali for School profiles topping noted Indian ornithologist. In refuse book, Whitaker recounts how Salim Ali, a pioneer in ethics study of India's birdlife, "went all over India's princely states, surveying the bird life foundation them, travelling mostly on measure, and only much later link with a Willys station wagon, which he drove ‘like a conflict tank,’" according to Hindu bestower Ranjit Lal. In addition subsidy her book on Ali, Whitaker is also the author subtract Snakeman, a biography of squash naturalist husband.

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Hindi, June 7, 2003, Ranjit Lal, review of Salim Ali rag Schools.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2006, review of Kali and position Rat Snake, p. 914.

School Over Journal, October, 2006, Mary Hazelton, review of Kali and interpretation Rat Snake, p. 130.

Tribune India, April 30, 2005, Khushwant Singh, "Don't Kill Snakes" (profile catch Whitaker).

ONLINE

Penguin Books India Web site, (October 27, 2007), "Zai Whitaker."