Our team tested the sleep habits of five wild three-toed sloths by placing on their heads, in the early evening after they had fallen asleep, bright red plastic dishes filled with water. It sleeps or rests on average twenty hours a day.

I had the great luck one summer of studying the three-toed sloth in situ in the equatorial jungles of Brazil. There are two-toed sloths and there are three-toed sloths, the case being determined by the forepaws of the animals, since all sloths have three claws on their hind paws. I chose the sloth because its demeanour-calm, quiet and introspective-did something to soothe my shattered self. My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. My fourth-year thesis for religious studies concerned certain aspects of the cosmogony theory of Isaac Luria, the great sixteenth-century Kabbalist from Safed.

My majors were religious studies and zoology. After one year of high school, I attended the University of Toronto and took a double-major Bachelor's degree. I have remained a faithful Hindu, Christian and Muslim. But through it all, he remains determined and optimistic, relying on his strong faith to see him through every challenge he must face.Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly brought me back to life.

Pi is in near-constant peril throughout the story (though it's told as a flashback, so you know he'll survive) and, after losing his whole family, he must negotiate sharing a very small space with a large, unpredictable tiger (one of Pi's tactics involves peeing on part of the lifeboat they share). Although it's rated PG, and there's virtually no strong language, sexual content, or blood, this adaptation of Yann Martel's bestselling novel has several very harrowing (especially in 3-D) scenes of storms, shipwrecks, the possibility of implied cannibalism, and zoo animals threatening humans and confronting, killing, and eating each other - all of which are likely to be too much for younger children (as are the themes of allegory and mysticism, which will require thoughtful parental explanation). Parents need to know that Life of Pi is an intense, emotional story of survival and triumph against the odds, with themes of faith, friendship, and perseverance.

Life of pi free online book