Jennifer S. Holland adapts her popular adult book, Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom, into an attractively designed photographic paper-over-board book that makes an ideal transitional reader.
In her introduction, Holland describes how she observed a pair of inseparable fish from two different species on a dive at the Great Barrier Reef, which set her down a path to discover other unlikely buddies. She spotlights five such pairs, beginning with the three-month-old rhesus monkey of the cover, rescued from an island in China, and the dove that befriends him until both can return to the wild. Other odd duos include Mauschen, an Asian black bear in a zoo in Germany, and a stray black cat named Muschi; and Tarra, a performing pachyderm that retires to a Tennessee elephant sanctuary where Bella, a stray dog, befriends her. When Bella gets hospitalized in the vet's quarters, Tarra plants herself outside until Bella emerges, then "pets" the pooch with her trunk! Readers also meet Libby, the "seeing-eye cat" for canine Cashew, who's going blind, and the astonishing friendship of a predator and prey in Kenya--a lioness and a baby oryx.
Each six- to eight-page story, set in large type, brims with irresistible full-color photographs. Children can dip in and out or read the entire book in one sitting. Readers will also want to collect The Dog and the Piglet, Book 2 and The Leopard and the Cow, Book 3. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness