“You wouldn’t think it would be enjoyable, a book that delves into and details the dire plight of so many of the animals with which we humans share this earth. But it is. Peter Reitsma’s text is trenchant, informed, unstinting, poetic and sometimes quite funny (the zebra’s stripes as bar code?) while his matching paintings are straight to the point, surprising and poignant (an elephant prays the rosary whose beads may be made of ivory). This is not a happy book, but rather the hard-earned, living hope of a creativity that would if it could restore what has been redacted from our home planet.”