"Humans were surrounded by other animals from the beginning of time: they were food, clothes, adversaries, companions, jokes, and gods. And yet, our companions in evolution are leaving the world - both as physical beings and spiritual symbols - and not returning. In this collection of linked essays, Alison Hawthorne Deming asks, and seeks to answer: what does the disappearance of animals mean for human imagination and existence? Moving from mammoth...

"Cursed by an old carnival game, sixth-grader Rex Dexter uses his new ability to communicate with dead animals to investigate the mysterious deaths of endangered zoo animals"--