GARY AND RAY

All the other animals seem to have family or friends with whom to interact, but Gary the gorilla has no one. He is alone and frightened and wonders if he will ever find someone to love. Enter Ray, a tiny sunbird who becomes his friend. They dance and sing and swing and have great fun together. But it isn’t really enough. Then Ray introduces Gary to a lovely lady gorilla, and Gary is never lonely again. Adams’s sweet, tender tale of loneliness, hope and friendship is charmingly told with simplicity and clarity as well as with a keen ear for language that will resonate with the youngest readers. First placing readers at the edge of the jungle via the endpapers, bold, striking lino-print illustrations in vivid colors capture Gary’s every emotion and offer a stunning display of his jungle surroundings and the animals and humans that inhabit it with him. The result is at once accurate and fanciful. Youngsters will turn these pages again and again and find something new each time. Lovely. (Picture book. 3-8)