Growing up at the zoo offered memoirist more than a few tales to tell

Beemerville — Few people can say they grew up in a zoo and Lori Space Day happens to be one of them. Born at the legendary Space Farms in Sussex, she spent much of her childhood and teenage years helping to care for, and raise, a wide variety of animals at the 83-year-old zoo run by her family. For many years she captivated her children while sitting around a campfire, telling the stories about her wild animal adventures. Eventually she was convinced to write them all down. What resulted were 95 chapters of animal stories collected in her memoir, “The Zookeeper’s Daughter.” “This book includes all the stories my kids loved,” said Day, “plus behind-the- scenes information about the zoo, all the amazing things that happen when you’re raising animal babies. Plus, there is a lot of educational information about animals.” Today, aside from her writing, Day is still a part of Space Farms, where she helps take care of sick animals, runs the animal nursery and promotes Space Farms through speeches and appearances. Eager listeners Day has found that audiences enjoy hearing her stories about life at the zoo. One of her favorites included in the book is about a jaguar named Jingles. “Jingles the jaguar came to us in the early ’70’s, when it was legal for anyone to own a jaguar. We literally found him on the doorstep in an empty box of Japanese toys called ‘jingle balls,’ so we called him Jingles. My job was to take care of him,” she said. “Eventually he adopted me and he became my baby, but he didn’t like men. One day, when he was older, Jingles got out of his cage and my parents were really worried about what could happen to the male groundskeeper. My mom had to come and take me out of high school so I could round up Jingles. I wasn’t gone from school for more than an hour.” So far, Day’s book has sold more than 3,000 copies through the print on demand publisher called Publish America. Through the process of getting her first book published, she learned how difficult it is for first-time authors to get their work in print. “I spent six years writing the book and two years trying to get it published,” she said. “It is so hard for a first-time author to get published.”

It’s a very unique lifestyle. I see every day as an adventure, and anything can happen. An animal might be sick or a new baby could be born. And some days, all you do is shovel.” Lori Space Day Author, “The Zookeeper’s Daughter”