“I’d somehow assumed that my quest was to let the animals show how much they are like us. My task …. is to see who animals are —like us or not.” This skillful adaptation of the author’s adult book, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, focuses solely on elephants and killer whales (orcas). Safina describes his time with researchers in the field learning about the two animals’ behavior, social relationships, and threats to survival (for elephants, ivory hunters followed by disappearing habitat; for whales, reduced populations of fish and other food sources, and pollution, including sonar sound pollution from the military). Balancing scientific information with ample and compelling anecdotes, Safina has written an account that is always fascinating, sometimes astounding, and often deeply moving. (Age 10 and older)