Jane Goodall Tribute

by Kevin Wolf

Dr. Valerie Jane Morris Goodall (primarily known as Jane Goodall; born in 1934), famed wildlife conservationist, environmentalist, primatologist, anthropologist, and climate activist died October 1, 2025 at the age of 91. Goodall received her PhD in ethology (the science of animal behavior and how it relates to human behavior) from the University of Cambridge in 1965. There have been several graphic novels written about her. Three books will be reviewed here. One (Primates) covers the lives of three ethologists (Jane, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikos), emphasizing their scientific results. I’ll use the first names of the protagonists and last names of the graphic novel authors throughout this review. The other two books (Mr. Tompkins and Jane Goodall in Chimpland and Me … Jane) are primarily about Jane’s life and childhood, respectively. The latter is a children’s picture book. The books reviewed here don’t consider colonial issues or exploitation of resources in Africa, but as expected, emphasize the protagonists. Keep in mind that these scientists (and Louis Leakey—who played a pivotal role—and born in Nairobi East Africa) spent much more than half their lives in Africa for their research. Jane received over fifty honors over her lifetime, including President’s Medal by the British Academy, (U.S.) Presidential Medal of Freedom, Award for Humane Excellence (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, numerous honorary doctorates, among many others. I found all the books reviewed here educational and entertaining.

Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikos tells the story of three women ethologists (studying the behavior of non-human animals). The cover image provides the types of primates they studied. We see (from right in reverse order of how presented in Primates) Biruté Galdikos her studied primate, an orangutan, Dian Fossey with mountain gorilla, and Jane Goodall and chimp. Primates follows Jane, Dian, and Biruté from their childhoods into their early adulthoods and successes as ethologists. They’re a mix of these scientists’ personal story and their scientific results for the primary audience being children through early high school.

The illustrations are in color. Each chapter emphasizes one of the ethologists. The narration is often in first person, and to avoid confusion the narration boxes use a different color for each protagonist. The illustrations are fairly realistic and we see a lot of sounds of the forests. I especially liked the sounds floating through the image on page 91 from Biruté’s story. There are some poignant and humorous events in Primates.

Primates, page 91, panel 1.

As a child, Jane read Dr. Dolittle[i] many times and from then on always had an interest in Africa. We see her curiosity and patience as a child when she stays hours in a henhouse so the hens would get used to her presence and she watches them lay eggs.

At age 18, she was invited to visit a friend in Kenya. She saves money for the trip. Jane has a serendipitous encounter with Louis Leakey (1903 – 1972), paleoanthropologist and archaeologist, who was born in Kenya. In rapid succession, Primates shows Louis’ secretary (Rosalie Osborn) sent to Uganda—perhaps at his wife’s (Mary’s) request—to study gorillas, then Jane taking over secretarial work, moving on to Louis’ archeological dig, and finally replacing Rosalie in Uganda because, Leakey says, “I don’t think Rosalie’s getting anywhere with the gorillas.” (Note: dialogue is often fabricated and is often compressed “to tell a story and not make a textbook” and “to get the significant details right [from the Afterword, 135].” For Jane, the study of gorillas is a childhood dream fulfilled.

After funding was acquired, Louis supported Jane to research chimpanzees “in Gambe, Nigeria, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika [11].” Jane’s mother chaperoned Jane and both quickly acquired malaria and took two weeks to recover. The reader gets some of Jane’s information as we watch her write her journal. She toughens up to the environment. She quietly watched the chimps and they, initially felt threatened but eventually quit watching her. Goodall narrated, “Many scientists did feel threatened by me … First, … Louis was controversial. Second, I didn’t look like most of them [i.e., male]. And I had no academic credentials. Habituating animals to human presence also wasn’t common. And worst of all, I started naming the chimps [18].” George Schaller, “primatologist who’d done the longest wild gorilla study …—400 hours!—told Jane, “Scientists number things … And because you’re so … different [need I write female?], I think that’ll cause you even more trouble. But if you observe even one instance of meat eating or tool use, that will justify all your work [19].” She’d start her observations early each day and return after sundown. In 1960, in the first two months of Jane’s arrival Jane saw the chimps use a stick (tool) to collect ants from inside an ant hill to eat them; and on another occasion saw them eating meat (“probably pig [23]”)! She wrote Louis with the news, who immediately had a press conference, as was his want, to announce Jane’s findings (“Thanks to Jane’s work, now we must redefine tool, redefine Man [who had been defined as the only tool user, 23] … or accept chimpanzees as human).” Jane narrated, “We now know that chimpanzees and human share a great deal of DNA … 96% or more [24].”

Louis helped get Jane accepted at Cambridge in the ethology PhD program. Jane writes, “July 1962: Back in Chimpland, at last [29].”

Among male chimps, Flo was a popular female chimp because of her mothering newborns and young chimps, including Flint, Fifi, Figan, and Faben. Jane wrote, “When Flint or Fifi misbehaves, or do something Flo doesn’t want, she doesn’t hit them. She gently stops them. And if that doesn’t work, she still doesn’t hit them—she distracts them [we watch her tickle them] instead. And touching. Always grooming and petting and touching. This works wonders between mother and child, male and female, leader and follower [36].” In 1967, Jane used what Flo taught her to raise her own son, Hugo Eric Louis van Lawick [nicknamed Grub], after Jane married in 1964.

At age 31 in 1963, Dian Fossey, while traveling in the area, had demanded to get to the gorillas and her guide brought her to Louis. One hilarious scene has Dian throwing up on some of Louis’s collected fossils after she had fallen and hurt her leg; and Louis said, “Well, I suppose those fossils have survived worse in the last million years or so [39].” Dian returns to the United States.

Later when Louis lectured in Louisville, Kentucky Dian attended. Louis remembered her sprained ankle. The day after a lecture, Primates includes the following conversation between Dian and Louis Leakey:

Louis: Jane Goodall’s in her sixth year … Splendid researcher! Women are fundamentally better in the field than men. They’re more patient, and give more of themselves. I’ve already tested 22 people—none have proved satisfactory … Would you like to study gorillas?

Dian: I … I’m an occupational therapist. I have no training in anthropology, zoology, ethology, bio…

L: Don’t care. I have no use for overtrained people. Too many prejudices and preconceptions.

D: I think you ought to know that I’m … 34 years old. Isn’t that a little … [the word “old’ goes unsaid]

L: Perfect. You’ve attained the maturity … and won’t act rashly …

… [And more convincing discussion]

L: By the way … you’ll have to have [your appendix] removed [to avoid a lingering death from untreated appendicitis, which apparently had happened to others. [We see that Dian getting an appendectomy wasn’t easy … nor was it really necessary, 45 – 49.]

When in the field. Dian learned to communicate with local poachers in their language <shown in angle brackets>. Poachers showed her where gorillas were; and she told them, “<From now, no poach in my park …and I tell herders no cattle grazing too> [61].” Rosamond tells Dian she must be reasonable and let the locals follow their traditions. Dian felt she had to protect the gorillas.

Dian always found “scent … precedes … sound … sound almost always precedes sight [of the gorillas, 63].” She tries to mimic the gorillas’ facial expressions and actions. Visually, she found their noses varied. She sound recorded their calls. “Unlike Jane’s chimps, they live in small and rather stable family groups. They don’t appear to use tools … What they do have is a dominant male. He sets the pace for the whole group. They rest when he rests, feed when he feeds. Except for a few insects … they’re strictly herbivores [66].” Specific calls and actions have specific meanings … “They cry, they bark, they chuckle, they … Wraaaaaaagh [67]!” But they’re not very violent. They don’t show much interest in humans. Dian writes, “I was finally accepted by a gorilla [named Peanuts with a gentle touch and chest-thumping, 71 – 72].” She said the locals called [her] ‘Nyiramachabelli’ (‘The old woman who lives alone in the mountains without a man [78]).”

Louis got Dian into a PhD program at Cambridge. Dian found wintering in Cambridge “dismal [79].” Primates, directed at younger readers, makes no mention of Dian’s tragic murder on December 27, 1985 with some mystery surrounding the culprit(s).

As a child, Biruté Galdikas found “Victorian scientists … would study animals … meticulously describe them … and then kill them and bring them home. I guess it’s a good thing nobody … ‘meticulously describe[d]’ wild orangutans [82 – 83].” Biruté asked Louis—after a UCLA college lecture he gave—if she could study orangutans and he accepted her after she passed the same playing card test that both Jane and Dian had previously passed; and no man had passed. “Louis believed women were more perceptive and more patient than men. He also thought women didn’t bring out aggression in male primates the way men did [86].” Biruté asked to complete her degree before starting her on site exploration. He claimed again that Biruté had to have her appendix removed, but she refused. Biruté’s husband, Rod Brindamour, left for Borneo in September 1971 after Louis got funding from the National Geographic Society.  Louis provided supplies. “His most important gift, though was a letter of introduction to Mr. Sinaga … [for changed plans] in the Tanjung National Park [in Indonesia, 90].” They named their shack “Camp Leakey [91, see earlier illustration].”

Biruté had trouble finding any orangutans. She learned “there’s a captive [baby] orangutan in a nearby home” and said, “confiscate him and give him to us … We’ll release him in the reserve [95].” Now named, Sugito, that orangutan clung to Biruté who became her “mother.”

On 24 December 1971 Biruté finally saw a mother and child orangutan in the wild. Named the mother Beth and her baby Bert. Biruté analyzed what they ate; Biruté wrote 30 pages of notes in ten hours that day. “Orangutans, compared to other primates, live in slow motion … Jane Goodall observes as much chimp social behavior in a few hours as I do for orangutans in two months … Make that two years. … I appreciate what wonderful climbers they are. Totally arboreal [living in trees, 101 – 102].”

Biruté writes, “… Barbara Harrisson visited. She had raised orphan orangutans in Sarawak in the 1950s and early 1960s. I had studied her book Orang Utan [‘wild person in the woods’ in Melayu, 104] …” Biruté had surpassed Barbara in getting so close to wild orangutans.

At one point, Biruté accidentally sliced her leg with a machete, but not too badly. And on her way back to her home, Biruté saw for the first time an orangutan walking on the ground. Biruté pointed out “Of course, … much of what we scientists ‘discover’ is well known by local people. Biruté gives a lecture, saying “We anthropologists view coming down from the trees as a major event in hominid evolution … But the local Melayu people didn’t consider traveling on open ground a major event. And neither did the orangutans. They just did it [115 – 116].”

Primates, closes with Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas meeting at the “1974 Wenner-Gran Conference on ‘The Behavior of Great Apes’ … held … in Austria. … Louis had died in 1972 [117].” They had disagreements (Were tourism funds worth potential ecological damage? Did zoos help with long term survival? How could conservation be financially supported?). The three laughed over a story by Dian about speaking to Alfred Hitchcock, the movie director. Hitchcock thought about making a movie (“Gorillas have such … presence,” he said; and Dian responded, “They’re also about as dangerous as pet lambs … [emphasis in original, 121]”). That was the end of Hitchcock’s interest in this undertaking. That evening the three of them celebrated Louis Leakey’s support.

Primates is the third book by Jim Ottaviani reviewed at graphicmedicine.org. The prior two reviewed books were Wire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love illustrated by Dylan Meconis and finding “that love and comfort was necessary to survive and thrive;” and an adaptation of environmentalist’s Edward O’ Wilson’s memoir entitled Naturalist with illustrations by C M Butzer. This time Ottaviani teamed with the illustrator Maris Wicks. (Wicks’ Human Body Theater is awaiting review.)

The physicist George Gamow who wrote many popular science books—I read One Two Three … Infinity[ii] when I was in college—included four books under the pseudonym Mr. Tompkins. His son, Igor Gamow (with illustrations by Scorpio Steele) has been adapting the Mr. Tompkins books into short graphic novels (link provides electronic versions of the entire Mr. Tompkins series, each comic being 24 – 43 pages; there are ten graphic novels in this series). Those of interest medically would include books about Madame Curie, Darwin, Mendel, DNA, and On Bees and Seals (about environmentalist, Rachel Carson)[iii]. I believe there are additions by Igor, and not by his father, because there’s one about his father (Mr. Tompkins Meets his Maker, ISBN: 978-1502854612) and George Gamow didn’t write a memoir or auto-biography.

There are three parts to Mr. Tompkins and Jane Goodall in Chimpland. The first part is in black and white with Ivan Gamow starting a lecture about Goodall with the fictional Mr. Tompkins in the audience … dozing off. The middle and longest part is Mr. Tompkins dreaming in color about Jane Goodall’s life with Mr. Tompkins periodically participating on the periphery. And the last part is back to black and white with Gamow completing his lecture and Mr. Tompkins awakening.

Jane lives many significant events in that middle part. There are two types of speech balloons or narrations; one with quote punctuation marks (“”) which I presume to mean these are for actual quotes from Jane’s published works or interviews. And the other type are speech balloons/narrations without such punctuation marks which are presumed to be Gamow’s own words or paraphrasing of Jane and other characters. The illustrations by Scorpio Steele are very realistic drawings of people, other animals, and their ecological scenery. I recommend this book for its fairly detailed portrayal and entertaining presentation. There’re several pages of sources and a bibliography at the back of this comic.

Igor quickly demonstrates the importance of animals to Jane’s life by dedicating this book to two of them: Rusty, a neighbor’s dog and her “best friend in childhood … by climbing a ladder he taught her that animals could reason [and] to Flo, whom Jane adored in adulthood, a chimpanzee … taught Jane so much about real life [and to] … be a better mother [pg. ii].”

Some stories are similar as that from Primates. I won’t repeat any of those here. When Mr. Tompkins appeared, he Sometimes interjected smarmy comments (e.g., when Jane said, “During World War Two I went to three schools and I never really liked any of them,” Mr. Tompkins melodramatically said, “Both Einstein and Darwin haaated school, too [emphasis in original, 15]!

Jane documented that chimps ate “… mostly fruit, leaves, blossoms, seeds, stems, and bark. Chimps had, until this point, been believed to be vegetarian, but on October 30, 1960 I first witnessed an extraordinary sight—I saw a chimpanzee eat meat—what I later learned was an infant bush pig. Chimps in the wild had been suspected to occasionally eat a small rodent or lizard, but to discover that they actually hunt and kill larger mammals [antelope, baboons, and red colobus monkeys] was quite a new discovery [emphasis in original, 20].”

There’s a two-page spread of the chimp hierarchy—during Jane’s first ten years in Gombe, where Jane did most of her research—with 18 chimps (15 male, 3 female) identified. Goodall said, “… once I was able to recognize them enough so I could tell who was related to whom, I really began to understand the chimpanzee society, and that it is a dominance hierarchy [26 – 27].” Jane goes on,

Flo was tough, yet relaxed, and a very affectionate, tolerant and nurturing mother to her daughter Fifi, juvenile son Figan, and adolescent Faben. In the wild, female chimps don’t have just one mate, and the father is not a part of the family. They give birth once every five to six years. Older offspring, even after independence, still spend a lot of time with their mother, and all the family members help one another.

When Flo was ready to mate her rump swelled a bright pink, and a long line of suitors took turns mating with her. Sexual swelling of a female in estrus [sexual receptivity and fertility in many female mammals] is basically a form of communication alerting males who may be almost a kilometer away of her desirability [28].

We see chimps’ facial expressions and onomatopoetic sounds of various strong emotions which Jane explained that “[chimps] have at least thirty-four identifiable verbal calls which they use in tandem with facial expressions, gestures, and body postures … [28].”

Jane can be self-critical, because she didn’t always follow prior research practices. She named the animals she encountered (rather than prior researchers who numbered their “subjects”], because she found otherwise it was too hard to keep track of the chimps. Grooming for hours was common by mothers to their offspring and between adult males. Hugs are common among chimps. Jane found it thrilling and a strong sign of trust when David Greybeard, an adult chimp, let Jane groom him, but decided soon after this was unprofessional and kept her distance thereafter to remain an observer and not interfere (29). Other reasons to keep her distance included, “… if they get too familiar, they can be dangerous—chimps are much stronger than humans. Further, they might catch an infectious disease from us, or vice versa [29].”

There are some touching stories. For example, Jane said, “Finally, during an unusually lean dry season, Flo died while crossing the Kakombe Stream. A very sad day. It was as if I had lost my old friend. But Flint, Flo’s son, had lost his whole world. He never recovered from Flo’s death—he barely ate, he kept to himself … in grief he fell sick. We tried to help—took him food and stayed with him so that he wouldn’t feel so alone … but nothing did any good. About three weeks after Flo’s death, Flint died, too [35].” Flo was about 53 and Flint was 8 ½ (this reviewer only had to do a search on “how old was Flint, Flo’s child, when he died” to find out their ages; no need to mention Jane Goodall or the African reserve she worked in).

There was an occasion when polio spread through the chimp population. Olly’s (another mother’s) baby chimp was first to get polio and other chimps followed with paralyzed limbs and several were euthanized; vaccinations, successfully prevented paralysis in other chimps. Mr. Tompkins reappeared to ask if humans started the epidemic, but Jane claims they didn’t; while the polio had started ten miles south outside the feeding area. Thereafter, humans no longer allowed themselves to touch the chimps.

The book closes with Jane talking to Mr. Tompkins. She developed a program for children, “Roots and Shoots [link is US branch, and it’s in 100+ countries].” And Mr. Tompkins had awakened from his nap as Gamow ends his Jane lecture.

There are six pages of endnotes and a bibliography with seven books by Jane and five books by others, along with many other articles, videos, and websites. Mr. Tompkins series (Volume 2 is awaiting review).

Children’s picture book biographies often have the wonderful characteristic that they playfully cover the early childhood of the star of the book and Me … Jane doesn’t disappoint. Patrick McDonnell, comic strip creator of Mutts, has taken on Jane Goodall’s early childhood where her love for animals first emerged.

The title page shows a photograph of young Jane smiling while holding her well-worn “stuffed toy chimpanzee named Jubilee” as McDonnell writes on the opening page of Me … Jane. This picture book includes three photographs and many drawings (pg. 10 – 11, 40 which came from Goodall, while one photograph (37) came from Hugo Van Lawick, her husband, from his work with National Geographic. The Lawick photograph ends McDonnell’s version of Goodall’s story as “her dream come true [36]” of caring for and studying real chimpanzees in the wild. Realistic engravings from 1800s – 1900s appear in the book “evoking Jane’s lifelong passion for detailed, scientific observation of nature [40].”

Throughout this wonderful book we watch McDonnell’s cute renderings of birds, butterflies, rabbits, his iconic squirrels, and many more as Goodall gambols in her yard with Jubilee in tow. Children can watch Jane learn where chicken eggs come from.  “Jane often climbed her favorite tree, which she named Beech [20].” Like all children feel, McDonnell draws Jubilee—seemingly alive—in Beech, where Jane would reread Burrough’s Tarzan of the Apes “in which another girl, also named Jane, lived in the jungles of Africa [24].”

Me … Jane, page 23

We watch Jane’s imagining swinging from vines in trees under the watchful eyes of forest animals until one day (in closing) … Lawick’s photograph could be taken of Jane famously reaching toward the hand of a young chimp.

Me … Jane, page 37, photograph by Hugo Van Lawick/National Geographic Stock

At the very end of Me … Jane, McDonnell provides a page about Jane Joodall with links to www.rootsandshoots.org (for children to get involved) and www.janegoodall.org, The Jane Goodall Institute, and includes a letter from  Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE (Dame of the British Empire), and a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Me … Jane was a Caldecott Honor Book in 2012.

This website previously reviewed Guardians of Being – Spiritual Teachings from Our Dogs & Cats, illustrated by McDonnell and written by Eckhart Tolle; and currently awaiting review is McDonnell’s Breaking the Chain – The Guard Dog Story.

[i] Doctor Dolittle is a book series written and illustrated by by Hugh Lofting begun in 1920.

[ii] One Two Three … Infinity was first published in 1947 by Viking Press.

[iii] Anyone interested in reviewing any of these Mr Tompkins Series graphic medicine works, please send an email to reviews@graphicmedicine.org. There’s even a Teacher’s Edition with all Ten Books (374 pages), glossary of terms, and lesson plans provided.