In this beautiful book, he offers thirteen original animal stories that teach lessons about friendship and cooperation, honesty and love, respect for individuality, the costs of stubbornness and the idiocy of discrimination. Like all good writers, Dr. Dobrin lets the message emerge from the tale, and he ends each story with a provocative question a parent can ask a child, or a child can ponder alone. Ms. Roger's illustration are whimsical and wonderful. The fit between story and illustrations is splendid. A few words about the animals as teaching devices.
Every story has a different set of creatures as protagonists.
In this way, the animals inform young readers about different cultures, as well as different virtues. Moreover, in almost every story, Dr. Dobrin gives his animals names before we learn that they are camels or zebras or hippos. Like all hippos she knew, Rhonda ate with chopsticks. This is not only wonderful writing, it also establishes immediately the personality of the protagonist. Perhaps unconsciously, Dr. Dobrin shows that creatures are more than the categories zoologists put them in.