Time for another blog. I just found a really nice place to buy a very interesting book. I did not pay a lot for this book and it was actually a very good book. I found the book – at all places – the Dollar Tree. If you were thinking what I thought, you thought, the Dollar Tree?  How could there possibly be any good books there? Aren’t most of the books sold there, cast off rejects of books that nobody wanted to read? I don’t know but I found this book and it was ah-maze-ing!

Written by Diane Hammond, the title of the book is Friday’s Harbor. Viernes (which means Friday in Spanish) is found at a small theme park in Bogota, Colombia. He had been in captivity for 18 years at this theme park, and was a sickly whale, not well-cared for, neglected and the bottle-nosed dolphins who he shared a pool with were always bullying him. “His skin was delicately filigreed all over with rake-marks from their teeth, while they could move fast in this small pool, he barely fit, which made him slow and awkward.”

Enter Ivy – one of the main characters, who had come with a committee to visit the killer whale and notices his declining health and poor living conditions. It also so happens that she is wealthy and her nephew is the newly appointed director of the Max L. Biedelman Zoo. It also just so happens that the zoo has built a brand new porpoise pool, which has not been put to use. Pulling strings, Ivy gets the zoo to accept transporting and taking care of the whale.

The cast of characters was chosen well to be the team of caretakers for the whale. Truman, the nephew who runs the zoo, Gabriel Jump who becomes the whales caretaker and trainer, Neva – Trumans girlfriend who also helps to care for and train the whale. Libertine Adaigo – who claims to be an animal communicator and heard the whale calling her to her telling her of his plight. She follows him to the zoo and soon gets on board with the zoo as a volunteer for the whale and eventually gets hired as soon as she gains their trust. Martin Choi – is the reporter who cannot be trusted. Even Julio Iglesias – the Chihuahua with attitude makes for an interesting character in the book and eventually becomes one of the whales best friends.

The story is full of cute and interesting anecdotes how Friday adjusts to his new home and becomes very popular to the world. The controversy takes place between the zoo and an animal rights protection group which believes that wild animals should not be in captivity. The rescuing of the baby whale who was injured and unable to keep up with his pod melted my heart. It gave Friday a whole new purpose to life.

The take away from the book I got? Everybody has a purpose and even though when sometimes it seems like everything is about to fail – something good will come along. We all have a purpose to take care of somebody or something.

*The author also wrote Hannah’s Dream, about an elephant they rescued and raised at the same zoo – which I might have to go read too*

Happy reading. What good book have you read lately? Share below