By Nicholas Read
Illustrated by Ellen Klem
Prometheus Books, Publishers 2001;
ISBN 1573928976; 150 pages; $14.00

Nicholas Read has focused his story-telling talents on farm animals for this book, which will appeal to readers age ten and older. Saving Emily, published last year, tells two separate tales, one of a 12-year-old boy named Chris and the other of a young heifer named Emily. The tales are all the more interesting because each is told from the main character's unique perspective.

We join Emily and Chris as each one faces hardships. Emily's seemingly bucolic life changes dramatically as she endures branding and separation from her mother; then she is hauled to a livestock market where she is sold to a feedlot operator to be fattened for slaughter.  Meantime, Chris's mother, a divorcee, is remarrying, and Chris must move with his mother from the city and his friends to a very different way of life in the country. Emily and Chris learn important lessons about life as they learn more about themselves. The two characters finally meet near the end of the story when happenstance brings them together.