My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope - By Ellie Laks
Founder Ellie Laks started The Gentle Barn after adopting a sick goat from a run-down petting zoo in 1999. Now, thousands of animals later (including cows, chickens, pigs, goats, horses and many more), The Gentle Barn has become an extraordinary nonprofit that brings together a volunteer staff of community members and at-risk teens to rehabilitate abandoned and/or abused animals. As Ellie teaches the volunteers to care for the animals, they learn a new language of healing that works wonders on humans as well. My Gentle Barn weaves together the story of how the Barn came to be what it is today with Ellie's personal journey. My Gentle Barn is a heartwarming, feel-good account that will delight animal lovers and memoir readers alike. It is a story about animal rescue, human recovery, love, life and achieving your dreams.
“My Gentle Barn is a wonderful book. You'll love Ellie Laks and the animals she rescued--and who rescued her back.” –Sy Montgomery, author of The Good Good Pig
"If your heart has ever gone out to a stray animal on the side of the road glimpsed from a passing car, read this book. This is the inspirational story of a woman who followed her heart, becoming a skilled animal listener. Ellie Laks vividly describes how she rescued countless broken domesticated animals and then learned to decipher the language of their pain. In giving voice to the voiceless and love to the unloved, Laks healed her own damaged childhood, then blazed a trail for the salvaging of the lives of other at-risk kids. In the end, Laks and The Gentle Barn raises the bar for animal rescue operations and lowers the boom on animal abusers. I loved this book."
–Jana Harris, author of HORSES NEVER LIE ABOUT LOVE
