"'Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes...' Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. It's 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic....

After a fire kills her parents, eleven-year-old Martine must leave England to live with her grandmother on a wildlife game reserve in South Africa, where she befriends a mythical white giraffe.

Illustrations and brief text follow the antics of a mischievous monkey and his animal friends.

"The story of two giraffes--one English-speaking and one Spanish-speaking--that overcome the language barrier to forge a friendship"--