Holly Keller, Horace (Morrow, 1991)

Horace is another of the adoption books that's been on my plate
recently, and of the batch I've read over the last month or so, I'd
have to say this one's the best by a pretty wide margin. The title
character is a leopard who's been adopted by a family of tigers, and
after a birthday party where he's overwhelmed by the number of stripes
surrounding him, he decides to go out into the world and find a place
where people look like him.

Oddly, despite the fact that I really liked this, I wanted to see more
of it; Keller sets up the situation in such a way that there are a
pretty sizable number of neuroses that could crop up towards the end,
and seeing how Horace and his family reacted to those could have made
for an interesting book (though it would quickly grow much larger than
your typical kids' picture book), but what's here is good for what it
is-- a reassuring look at the choice adoptive parents make in choosing
kids that don't look like them. Good stuff. I'm hoping for a sequel.
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