{"product_id":"9780912887388","title":"\"Because They Needed Me\": Rita Miljo and the Orphaned Baboons of South Africa","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn May of 2007, noted American poet and novelist and son of Holocaust refugees Michael Blumenthal went to South Africa to volunteer at C.A.R.E., a rehabilitation center for orphaned and injured baboons founded by Rita Miljo. Rita was a Lithuanian-born childhood member of the Hitler Youth who had gone on to have a life as adventure-filled as Beryl Markham’s in \u003cem\u003eWest With the Night.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eA lot of people have asked me whether they could write ’my book,’ Rita wrote to Michael shortly thereafter, “and I said no, because I was envisaging a story both sad and happy, but certainly mixed with a lot of humor. But if you asked me, I would not say no.”\u003c\/em\u003e With that, for the only time in her life, Rita entrusted another human being with thirty years’ worth of her journals, and a rare and unusual collaboration was born. \u003cem\u003eBecause They Needed Me\u003c\/em\u003e is that story, a chronicle of primate conservation and the intrepid and courageous woman who devoted her life to it. It is like no other book of its kind.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46236627566833,"sku":"9780912887388","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0674\/5433\/7265\/files\/9780912887388_p0.jpg?v=1765394172","url":"https:\/\/shop.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780912887388","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble","version":"1.0","type":"link"}