Sara Gruen on the experience that inspired her to write APE HOUSE.

October 27, 2010

Right before I went on tour for Water for Elephants, my mother sent me an email about a place in Des Moines, Iowa, that was studying language acquisition and cognition in great apes. I had been fascinated by human-ape discourse ever since I first heard about Koko the gorilla (which was longer ago than I care to admit) so I spent close to a day poking around the Great Ape Trust's Web site. I was doubly fascinated--not only with the work they're doing, but also by the fact that there was an entire species of great ape I had never heard of. Although I had no idea what I was getting into, I was hooked...
To continue reading, visit Sara's site: http://http://saragruen.com/2010/07/a-letter-from-sara-2/

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