Happily Ever Esther by Steve Jenkins, Derek Walter and Caprice Crane

This book is a sequel to Esther The Wonder Pig. Esther really is a wonder pig in that she has captured hearts around the world with her Instagram account, Facebook page and books (a children’s book has also been published).

Recently Esther had some health issues and vets were not able to perform a scan due to her size. There was no large animal scanner in Canada and Esther would have had to be shipped to the United States if her owners wanted to proceed. Esther started to improve so they didn’t have to subject her to the stress of the travel and the worry about how they were going to pay for it. What Steve and Derek did do, however, is start a gofundme fundraiser to raise enough funds to purchase a large animal scanner for use in Canada (located in Ontario). Due to Esther, we now have a large animal scanner in Canada in which many animals will benefit. That is why I agree that she is a wonder pig – who would have thought that a daily diary of a pig’s life would change the lives of so many animals?

I was very excited when I heard that there was going to be another book and I purchased it as soon as it was available. I have to say, however, that I am disappointed. One of things that they said that the book would cover was the back story of all the animals they have received on their sanctuary farm. One of the animals that is consistently in Esther’s Instagram account is a 30 pound turkey called Cornelius that spends a lot of time with Esther. I really wanted to know how they ended up with a turkey on their farm, however, he was not even mentioned until the last page of the book and then it was only to say that the writer had to wrap up because he had a turkey that wanted some attention.

I give these two men credit that they have changed their lives completely due to Esther and have become devout vegans. I’m glad that it works for them and good for them! However, I did find that there were some sections that were a little “preachy” when it came to this topic and I felt that I was being a bit nagged about it.

I am disappointed that I did not enjoy the book more. I thought that I would.