The Council of Animals

This is a short little book, about several animals trying to decide what to do with a small group of surviving humans that have been discovered after a never-specified-but-human-caused Calamity. I was worried it was going to go hard in an Animal Farm direction, which it didn't, but it also failed to really capture my attention. Pleasant enough but insubstantial.

So, I'd forgotten I'd wanted to read this book, until I found it at the library (KCMO and KCK public libraries FTW). I was intrigued and excited, because I am five and still love talking animals. And this book fit the bill for fable nicely. But it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I feel like the narrative was a bit uneven. A good chunk of the book is the council itself, and then we're thrown into a rushed quest tale to save humans. There are some strange, awkward choices made with animals that become analogues for real-life cultural appropriation/racism. I don't think the author meant to minimize problems, but he did just that (re: ‘pooch' being a slur for dogs). And the animals personalities made very little sense. If you're going to have sinister, human-like primates, obvs they should be CHIMPS, not baboons. Horses aren't as stupid as the horse in the book. Crows shouldn't be religious fanatics. They're actually incredibly intelligent, with the intelligence of, like, a child of five (I maintain they're smarter than that). The delusional lizard is bizarre. The animals just didn't quite work. Though I liked the bear and the cat. It all just doesn't quite work. Though I like the solution for the humans.