This book is a wonderful depiction of what it's like to open your home up, physically and emotionally, to caring for the wild in a way that's responsible. The photos are charismatic and great for children, and the book encourages students to expand their thinking and ask questions about the world around them.

Suzi Eszterhas  is a wildlife photographer on the Masai Mara Preserve in Kenya. Suzi is asked if she would like to foster an serval kitten that was brought in by a tourist group after a fire. Suzi readily accepts and takes on the additional role of wildlife rehabilitator to Moto, the serval.  As Moto's adopted mother, Suzi must learn how to care for Moto and teach him how to be a serval in the wild, just like Moto's real mom would have done so he can go back to the wild once more.  

Moto and me is a fun and informative inside look at wildlife rehabilitation and the life of a serval.  This nonfiction book is aimed at children aged 5-10.  The pictures were all very cute and obviously amazing, taken by Suzi herself.  They documented Moto's life with her from kittenhood to an adult cat and give readers a chance to see Moto learning how to be a Serval as well as techniques that Suzi used in Moto's rehabilitation.  Along with this are great lessons about African animals, life cycles and the importance of leaving wildlife in the wild.  

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

A lovely little book with gorgeous pictures. The story of Moto is a sweet but realistic tale of an orphan being raised and then settling back into the wild. A perfect, short read for an adult with children - or even an adult alone! Ideal for animal lovers and those interested in animal conservation.

This book took me back to my childhood of imagining I was an adult, living in an exotic place, with exotic animals as my pets/friends.  

The author lived it folks!  And because she's a wildlife photographer, the pictures in this book are adorable and gorgeous.  I could seriously be happy with a book of just her pictures from her time in Africa.  I wish there were some other pictures of what she described too, not just of Moto, but the pictures of him were great, so no huge complaints here.  

The wording was a little on the simple side, but the target audience is younger readers, so it makes sense and isn't insulting to them or older readers.  

I highly recommend this book for the budding animal lover you know, especially if they like the cat family.  My inner little girl is jumping up and down, squealing and clapping her hands right now.  5 animal loving stars all the way!

My thanks to NetGalley and Owlkids Books for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

My kids adored this book!! I read it to three of my kids age 6, 8 and 9 and each one loved it.

Moto and Me: My Year as a Wildcat's Foster Mom by Suzi Eszterhas is a children's non fiction book. It tells the firsthand story of wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas’s care for an orphaned baby serval (a small, spotted wildcat) in Kenya. When a grass fire separates the serval from his family, a ranger asks Suzi, who is living in a bush camp and is skilled with animals, to be the serval’s foster mom. The book chronicles Suzi’s tender care of Moto, including how she feeds, bathes, and plays with him, and helps him develop hunting skills. Her goal is to help him learn how to survive on his own in the wild. After 6 months, he is ready to leave—a difficult good-bye, but exactly what Suzi had worked for.

Moto and Me is a story that combines emotion and information to nearly perfect effect. I enjoyed reading about the attachment and struggles Suzi faced in balancing the love she had for little Moto with her goal to help him grow up to be able to fend for himself. It was interesting to see how serval are both similar and different from the domestic cats that have always been a part of my life. The photographs of Moto's journey were simply beautiful and the icing on the cake. The information about how servals live, and how we can support the survival of the species was an important bonus. I think that the fact that the proceeds of the books sales going toward protecting the preserve where Moto now lives is a wonderful touch and makes me even more eager to get my hands on a paper (rather than digital) copy.

Moto and Me is a good combination of information and heart warming story. I loved learning more about how a serval grows, and how Suzi lived in Kenya. I need to buy this book for my daughter, who is still determined to live much like Suzi did in Kenya in order to care for wild animals.

Goodreads Rating: 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5
NetGalley Rating: 5 stars

I’ve known about Eszterhas’s work since I was a kid from her frequent photographs in “Ranger Rick” magazine, so I was excited to see this book! Her photographs always capture an animal’s personality incredibly well and the photos here are no different. Moto is delightfully adorable as a kitten and very regal and proud in his adult pictures.

This was a short, heartwarming memoir for kids about her time raising an orphaned serval kitten, Moto. She provides a page for each major milestone in her journey in caring for Moto, from learning what to bottle feed him, to letting him roam free and explore. Eszterhas blends her experiences and facts about servals into the narrative very smoothly and the picture-to-word ratio is excellent.

Although it’s billed as a kids book, it would make a lovely read for someone of any age who like wildlife and/or cats.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy to review!

When She of Little Talent was a little girl (many, many years ago), she dreamed of being some sort of field biologist who lived in a tent surrounded by lions or polar bears or something. She wanted to be the person who snowshoed into a remote place to crawl into a hibernating bear’s den and take a blood sample. She would have loved Moto and Me, by Suzi Eszterhas.

Eszterhas went to Kenya to photograph animals and ended up caring for a baby serval who was picked up by a group of tourists who assumed he was an orphan (although, the author writes, the baby’s mother was probably hiding nearby, just waiting for the humans to leave so she could retrieve him). She named the little wildcat Moto, meaning “fire” in Swahili, and she became totally devoted to his care, feeding him, bathing him, and helping him learn how to be a serval. She did this so that he could be a wild serval like he was born to be.

Alongside the story of raising Moto, Eszterhas tells us a lot about servals, which we found really interesting. She also writes of other encounters with wildlife, like seeing a leopard slink past her tent one night and of having a spitting cobra on her desk (that must have been fun). And then there are the photographs, which show Moto growing up. Let’s just say baby servals are adorable!

Moto and Me is recommended for ages 7–10. We found it be an enjoyable, informative read, with eye-catching photos. This is just the kind of book that can inspire or further a love of wildlife in some little girl or boy. Recommended!

As a kid, I was pretty obsessed with Joy Adamson. I read all of her books over and over for probably a year straight. My mom kept Queen of Shaba: The Story of an African Leopard from me until I had run through the lion & cheetah ones a thousand times, so for a while I got to live in a blissful world where an amazing human wasn’t killed by poachers because she loved animals. SIGH. So obviously I am a sucker for abandoned wildlife stories.

I also got to kind of live out that fantasy when, at 16 years old, my mom and I ended up with three 10-day old kittens. Because their cat-mom tried to eat them (and successfully ate two of their siblings, rip those adorable kittens). They were kind of shoved on us by a negligent owner, and the animal rescue place told us that they’d take them, but there was no way 3 kittens that young would survive. I was inconsolable until my mom agreed to raise them with me. And suck it, animal rescue, because all 3 of them are 11 years old now and alive and well (and obnoxious, but we love them. handraised kittens are huge brats!)

So Moto and Me ticks off a lot of boxes for me. Adorable teeny abandoned kitten raised by a woman living on a wildlife reserve? Endless pictures of said adorable Serval kitten along with lots of educational information? Yes please. This book is definitely aimed at a young audience (I think it would be perfect to read with a kid), so don’t expect a huge depth to the story. The focus is definitely on the nitty gritty of taking care of Moto, which includes cool details like teaching him to fish by putting a catfish in a bowl of water. Side note: if you are squeamish, there are shots of Moto hunting and playing with his prey.

The photography is really the star here. While the story is simply told, the photographs are rich and beautiful. We get to see Moto grow from a tiny, helpless kitten to a beautiful wild animal. Because Suzi Eszterhas is just fostering Moto and setting him up for a life in the wild, there is a bittersweet element at play. If you want a book that will make you feel warm and fuzzy in these troubled times and also tug on your heartstrings a lot, check this one out.

I felt like Moto was my own kitten as I read his story and saw the photographs.

This was a cute little story and I enjoyed reading about the adventure of Moto. However, I don't quite understand why Moto wasn't given to someone that was actually qualified to rehabilitate wild animals before setting them back into the wild. The given answer of having experience taking photos of wild cats, doesn't quite make sense. I also think that the info dump at the end of the book about severals could be better utilized by placing it throughout the story about Moto. Once the story about Moto is finished, there would be no interest in reading an info dump about generic severals. I was hoping to learn more in the story, but that never happened until the ending, and by that point, I was disinterested because it wasnt as personal as the story about Moto was.

Adorable memoir about a wildlife photographer who nurses and orphaned wildcat. If the story doesn't melt your heart, the photos of the adorable kitty will!

Young readers will go wild for Moto. (5 stars)

I'm always on the lookout for non-fiction books about animals to share with the students in the 2nd grade classroom where I work. They are voracious readers in general but they seem to especially enjoy reading about animals, rescues in particular. I wish I'd received a print review copy just so I could have shared this one with them, without a doubt this would be a favorite. Moto is so cute and his story shows how important it is for baby animals to be with their mothers. I also found it to be an exciting way to learn how much work caring for an animal is as well as what happens when a wild animal is rehabilitated and able to return to their natural life cycle.

With lovely photographs and fascinating facts I think this would be great for children in the 2nd-4th grade levels. Even as an adult I enjoyed it.

Author: Suzi Eszterhas
Ages 6-9 / Grades 1-3
Genre: Nonfiction 
Grade Range: 2–6
Fountas & Pinnell: P
Lexile: 860L

“Moto and Me” is the true story of a wildlife photographer’s experience serving as a serval’s (a small spotted wildcat) foster mom. A wildfire separated Moto from his littermates, so he was taken to a wildlife reserve. The book chronicles Moto’s development and the steep learning curve of teaching the kitten to survive in the wild. Suzi Eszterhas masterfully combines stunning photos and colloquial language to invite readers on her journey. Children will love watching Moto mature across the pages! The back of the book includes facts about the serval cat and its region.

I absolutely loved this book! This is a juvenile nonfiction book about Wildlife photographer living in Africa who fosters a serval cat, Moto, from the time he is two weeks old. The images here are wonderful and capture the development of Moto just as good as the narration captures the photographers love for her foster cat. 

I'm glad I got to read this!

Moto and Me: My Year as a Wildcat's Foster Mom, by Suzi Eszterhas is an intriguing and informative book, which portrays a rare wildlife rescue story.

With full-color photographs featured throughout this book, Moto and Me focuses on the firsthand story of Eszterhas, a wildlife photographer, caring for an orphaned wildcat--serval--at the age of two weeks. Plus, there's a list of interesting facts titled All about Servals. 

According to the book summary, "The book chronicles Suzi's tender care of Moto, including how she feeds, bathes, and plays with him, and helps him develop hunting skills. Her goal is to help him learn how to survive on his own in the wild. After six months, he is ready to live--a difficult good-bye, but exactly what Suzi had worked for."

While featuring brilliant full-color photographs, Moto and Me is a delightful forty page non-fiction book, and it's geared toward children, particularly grades one to six.

 
Note: I received this book from NetGalley, which is a program designed for bloggers to write book reviews in exchange for books, yet the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Such a warm story!  What a lucky experience, so glad it was shared.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I really absolutely adored this narrative.

Moto and Me, a personal inside look at an animal rescuer and the Serval that she raises to return to the wild is the first book by Suzi Eszterhas for me to have read. To say it is wonderful or amazing is an understatement. The text and illustrations give the reader insight not only to the Serval cat but to the author as well. 

It conveys the feelings of a foster animal mom with the “wildness” of the African Masai Mara’s savanna.  Fantastic photographs with open, honest details that would delight young readers as well as older; it is simply beautifully done. As having thirty years in elementary education, I believe this is one of the best children’s animal nonfiction books I have ever read. 

.

I'm going to give you three good reasons why you're going to go buy this book. 

1. A portion of the royalties from sales of the book will be donated to the Mara Conservancy to help protect Moto's home. 

2. LOOK AT THIS FACE.

3. LOOK AT IT.

Now that I've clearly and concisely argued my point. 

This book is amazing. Told quickly and effectively, as all children's nonfiction needs to be, it's the story of the world's most flippin' adorable baby serval, and the year Suzi Eszterhas spent fostering him while taking photographs in the wild in Kenya. 

The story of Mama Serval having to leave her baby behind is literally like two paragraphs and I was tearing up. I'm so soft. Maybe if I couldn't see the baby face, it would've been easier to handle. 

So much can be learned about wild animals in these few pages, and it's just such a sweet, fun story. Kids will be wondering about Moto, running in the wild and making new adorable fluffy faced bitey babies.