The Last Tiger: A Story of Hope

K-Gr 2--Aasha is a tiger facing rapid climate change and habitat loss. Tigers and other animals disappear around her, until her entire forest home is razed by machines and she finds herself completely alone in a bleak deforested landscape with just one other animal left, an orangutan named Teman. Together Aasha and Teman forge a friendship and find a new, pristine forest to live in. The plot has a couple of small holes, vacillating between verisimilitude and metaphorical fantasy. Aasha refers to the boar as her favorite meal and yet befriends and travels with the orangutan, for whom tigers are a natural predator. And while ending a story about climate change with a hopeful outcome is certainly developmentally appropriate for the intended audience, no avenues for change are offered and the idea that displaced animals can simply walk to a new forest provides shallow comfort. Back matter contains a letter from the creators, a glossary, and short lists of some animals that are extinct and other endangered animals that can still be saved. VERDICT Packing an emotional punch, this book provokes appropriate concern for habitat loss, but it misses the mark with a slightly disjointed narrative and contrived happy ending.--Mallory Weber