by Maria Faulconer
illustrated by Susan Kathleen Hartung
Dial Books for Young Readers, 2014. unpaged picture book
Umande is a gorilla baby born in a zoo. His birth mother is inexperienced and doesn't know how to take care of a baby, so the zoo keeper tries to raise the baby like a gorilla mother would. She carries him on her back and even sleeps with him in a hay nest. She knows, however, that he needs a real gorilla mother, but none of the gorillas in the zoo will accept him. Finally the zoo decides to fly him to another zoo where there is an older, experienced, gorilla mother. The experienced gorilla mother takes to the baby Umande immediately. After just a few months she has fully adopted the young gorilla. The heart warming text is accompanied soft simple illustrations that match the mood of the story. This picture book, based on a true story, is a tribute to loving adoptive mothers of all kinds.
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