After rescuing a small snake from the clutches of a crane, Hai Li Bu is rewarded by the Dragon King with the gift of being able to understand the speech of animals. But the gift comes with a condition: he must never reveal its source, or he will turn to stone. Hai Li Bu uses his new gift to sharpen his hunting skills and become a better provider for his people. But when he overhears the animals talking of a pending natural disaster, he is unable to convince his fellow villagers that they need to seek shelter. Hai Li Bu is then faced with a moral dilemma: should he tell his people how he knows what he knows or see his village destroyed? Ed Young uses the entire plane of every double-page spread for his pastel and gouache illustrations, yet there’s a sense of enormous space on every page. (Ages 5-9)