Henry Hyena, Why Won't You Laugh?

PreS-Gr 1—Henry Hyena is anxious. He normally loves a good belly laugh when something goes wrong, but now he's just not finding the mishaps of others to be funny. His friends can't get him to play or even to tease the other animals in the zoo. It's time to visit the wise old giraffe who tends to all the creatures. "Dr. Long," he worries, "my giggle is gone." Happily, Dr. Long diagnoses a case of empathy—"It's not that you're sick, and you're far from a fool," he explains. "You've just learned that laughing at others is cruel." Parents and teachers will appreciate the lesson imparted by this book's jaunty rhyming text, and children will relate to the animals whose pratfalls are made fun of by Henry's friends. There's plenty of humor here, too; readers will giggle at the computer-generated, colorful images of animals having a bad day.