Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe is born 10 feet high and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it rolls over its legs under its body. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces its children to the reality of life. In his book, A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond describes how a new-born giraffe learns its first lesson. The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she puts herself directly over her child. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She throws her long leg and kicks her baby, so that it's sent sprawling . When it doesn't get up, the process is repeated again and again. The struggle to rise is important. As the baby giraffe grows tired, the mother kicks it again. Finally, it stands for the first time on its shaky legs. Then the mother giraffe kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, a baby giraffe must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with its group, where there's safety. Another writer named Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing stories about such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin. Stone was once asked if he had found something that runs through the lives of all these great people. He said, "I write about people who sometime in their life have a dream of something. They're beaten over the head, knocked down and for years they get nowhere. But every time they stand up again. And at the end of their lives they've realized some small parts of what they set out to do ."
Who is the author who writes a book about a zoo animal?
What animal?
What time of life does the book focus on?
Does the mother seem to do something mean?
What?
Why does she do that?
Is she trying to hurt her baby?
What does she do after the baby gets up the first time?
Who wrote a book about greatness?
Who was one person that he wrote about?
Who else?
And another?
What did these people have in common?
Did those people achieve great things?
Did those people have easy lives?
How tall is a baby giraffe?
Gary Richmond
Gary Richmond
giraffe
 giraffe
new-born
new-born 
YES
She throws her long leg and kicks her baby,
She throws her long leg and kicks her baby
She throws her long leg and kicks her baby
She wants it to get up
She wants it to remember how it got up
no
giraffe must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with its group
kicks it off its feet again
kicks it off its feet again
Irving Stone
Irving Stone
Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
they sometime in their life have a dream of something
sometime in their life have a dream of something
yes
And at the end of their lives they've realized some small parts of what they set out to do ."
no
They're beaten over the head, knocked down 
10 feet
10 feet