Worth reading: Yes

Summary: This is the true account of Elsa, the lioness rescued with her sisters and, raised and nutured by Joy and George Adamson while George was the senior game warden for the Northern Frontier district in Kenya.

Born Free was written by Joy Adamson and chronicles the life of Elsa while she was part of the Adamson “Pride” and as they prepared her for her release back to the wilds of the African life she was born to.

It is an incredible tale of a lion who ended up being completely at home in two worlds, and knowing the boundaries and freedoms of each.

I saw the movie of the same name more than twenty years ago, and the story is still an inspiring one albeit in an Africa that is all but gone.

... the final paragraph is this

Whatever her ultimate fate may be, we shall always be thankful that she has given us a unique experience and the abiding memory of a most lovable character. If I have sadly to confess that “With a great sum obtained I this freedom” for her, I like to think that when she rubs her face against mine she is trying to comfort me by saying, in her own way, “But I was free born.”
Joy Adamson, 1960

Tags: Lions