This is a truly remarkable book to read if you are interested in learning how to become an effective advocate for animals. I wasn't born a vegan, I chose to become one when I turned 58 this year. I was on a quest to become healthy. It was a long and winding road of self-education and research. I had to look at the whole picture - preventable diseases, economics, marketing, cultural and peer pressure to conform, politics, environmental devastation, starvation, antibiotic resistant bacterias and pandemics, nutrition, water and land use - and the enormous effect eating choices have on all of these issues. I watched films like "Forks Over Knives" and read books like "Eat for Health" and "The Starch Solution" which led me to books like "Natural Prozac", "The Omnivore's Dilemma", and "Vegan for Life".I began watching Youtube videos focused on undercover filming of factory farms. I was horrified by what I saw and heard, the blood, the screaming, the debeaking of chickens, the rape of cows, the sows confined to cages so small that they lived their lives lying on a concrete floor, bags of live male chicks being thrown out with the trash and conveyor belts full of live chicks being fed into a grinding machine, calves being pulled steaming out of their mother's vaginas and thrown on floors, then scooped up and dumped into a truck to be hauled to auction, acres of tiny plastic crates, each one containing a calf being raised for a few months before being slaughtered for veal, animals being skinned alive for leather and fur. I learned that "organic, free-range" was essentially meaningless when stamped on egg cartons and milk cartons. When I posted what I was seeing and learning on Facebook, NONE of my friends responded except two - one said he felt conflicted now, and one said he worked with some vegans and was sick of hearing about this, that eating animals was a way he felt connected to departed family and friends - for him, it was an issue of memories being more important than financing abuse and murder. It didn't matter to anyone that their food choices were irrational, misinformed, habits, costing people and animals their lives. It didn't matter to them that they were demanding other people do their killing for them, and the mental and emotional damage those workers also suffered. I kept the old friends but made new ones who were supportive of my values, who were also vegans, who worked in animal sanctuaries. I visited FB pages for people who are animal rights advocates. I visited the Animal Abolitionist site - people who totally turned me off with their intellectualizing, self-righteousness, nit-picking and egos. I was feeling frustrated, angry, irritable, hostile towards others. I live with a husband who consumes animals and wake up almost every day to the smell of burning flesh as he cooks his breakfast sausages. I identified completely with animals who were so desperate and suffering so much horrific abuse their entire lives that they went insane. I had all of this information, all of this valid research and statistics, all of these images and had no idea how to take effective action to guide others into realizing how their eating choices financed the suffering and murder of sentient beings who were just as aware and loving and capable of contributing priceless gifts to others as human animals were. What use could I make of this stuff? How could I deal with other people who simply seemed incapable of seeing the connections between what they ate and the quality of life on earth for other living beings?Then I came across this book. Reading it has given me the information and the contacts I needed in order to learn how to become an effective animal rights advocate. There are examples of the different methods used by people who work in this movement, contrasting styles, talking about controversies within the movement, specific steps to setting up tables to offer vegan foods, handing out pamphlets, speaking to groups, contacting politicians, writing letters to newspapers, magazines, getting press coverage. The message is always, you are here because you want to help the animals, stay focused on that, it is not about you, it is important to be respectful of others, for them to see you as approachable. Hostility and anger turn people off to the message. Violence is not an effective means to end violence. Speak from the heart, share your experience if others want to hear about it, be informed but don't let your inexperience stop you from getting started. Get involved. Build a support network. Join groups who practice your beliefs. Plug in, here's a list of contacts. Every chapter ends with a list of resources - websites, books, agencies, phone numbers.I can't be too generous in my praise for this book, it is worth more than its weight in gold.