Moto and Me: My Year as a Wildcat’s Foster Mom

Wildlife photographer Eszterhas (the Wildlife Rescue series) offers a tender chronicle of her time living on the Masai Mara wildlife reserve in Kenya, where she raised an orphaned serval kitten. Eszterhas’s sharp photographs preserve moments from her time with Moto, including cleaning and bottle-feeding the animal, as well as carrying him in a pouch during photography expeditions (“I felt like a kangaroo mom with her joey”). Eszterhas explains how she slowly began to reintroduce Moto to the natural world, allowing his survival instincts to develop. Moto’s eventual return to the wild is poignant, but Eszterhas repeatedly emphasizes that living as a wildcat is best for Moto: “I love to picture him hunting in the long grass of the savanna, under the African moon.” It’s a vibrant, small-scale comeback story. Ages 7–10. (Apr.)