Children’s book tells a life told by animals

Brigitte Kassa with her children’s book in her Little
Cayman home

Friday,  June  3, 2005

“My friends asked me to write my life story, but I found it very difficult to write about me, so I wrote about the animals instead,” Brigitte Kassa told Cayman Net News in her home on Little Cayman.

The result is Brenetta and Her Menagerie…a story for children and the young at heart.

The book is divided into 26 chapters, each telling a story of her adventures as one of the very few people to brave the Island in the 1970’s, but told from the point of view of the animals that have played such a prominent part in her life here.

As she explains in her Author’s Note, “The main events in this story actually happened; the names of the animals and most of the people are authentic. Obviously animals don’t talk. But if they did, I imagined their words would be expressed as I have written them.”

Ms Kassa bubbles over with warmth and generosity, a characteristic that has resulted in the adoption of numerous pets over the years, especially the many birds she has rescued on the Island.

She was born in Germany, and still retains an accent as well as many memories from the European continent. For ten years, she lived in Monte Carlo, where she owned and ran a nightclub, patronized by the rich and famous.

“I saw the glamorous side of the world,” she said. Regular customers included Aristotle Onassis with opera star Maria Callas (in the days before Jackie), Greta Garbo, James Garner, Gunter Sachs, Brigitte Bardot, as well as European and Indian royalty.

“Monte Carlo was very pristine in the early sixties, full of very wealthy people,” she said. Little Cayman was a different world.

She told Net News: “I came to see if I could survive on an island. The history of the animals is the history of my life on Little Cayman. When I came here in 1971 with my husband Basil Kassa, there were ten local Caymanians, but no expats. There were also no roads, no mains electricity, no doctor, no nurse, no shops, no air service. There was one private club, the Southern Cross Club. No ships could come here. It was hard work, but we never thought of leaving.”

From the jet setting life in Europe, Ms Kassa has become absorbed into the natural world and close community of Little Cayman, and her love of the environment, the people and the animals shines through her stories. This is especially true of the final chapter on the experience of Hurricane Gilbert, as she describes her relief at finding everyone, animal and human, well after the storm.

Brenetta and Her Menagerie, charmingly illustrated by Mary McTaggart Christoffers, is sold at all resorts and shops on Little Cayman and selected outlets on Cayman Brac. On Grand Cayman it is distributed by Hobbies and Books.

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