The Way of the Eagle by Daniel P. Mannix
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This story came as part of an ancient Reader’s Digest I found laying around a garage sale. It piqued my interest because I am a bit of a naturalist myself, and I thought it’d be an interesting read. Doubly so after I read the inside dust cover saying it was an “informative” story about eagles.
Well, it was informative. And boring.
The story was of a male eagle, told in third person, of the eagle’s journey from eaglet (hatchling) to being a protected species. You get to hear of this eagle’s lessons in fighting his siblings for food, the compassion that the parents have when one of their young die, and how the young learn. You also get to read about the mating dance, how the female eagle pretty much dictates what’s going on in the nest, etc. There is a short bit at the very end regarding egg snatcher — which I hadn’t even realised was a thing back then, so I got to looking that up too.
Despite this book’s informative nature, I found it dull and boring. It was written completely as “the eagle did….” sort of sentence structure. It was very matter of fact, so it was much like reading a text book. Thankfully, it wasn’t that boring, though. I highly doubt many people would find it very easy to read now a days, but if one ever wanted an account of what an eagle’s life was like, this might be a good place to turn. Still, nature shows are far more entertaining than this.