With 92 black and white photographs of animals Bradley Grieve tries to cheer up the reader. There are lions, pelicans, rabbits, bears, kittens, frogs, cows, mice, seals, and many others. The animals are all looking cute, sad, or silly, and you are asked to imagine they know how they feel, or that they know how you feel. The message in the sentences that accompany the pictures is that although life may be hard, it is still worth living.

Curmudgeons such as myself will not look kindly at the prospect at people trying to cheer us up with childish books with pictures of kittens playing the piano, and I would not recommend giving this book to people who are unhappy in the hope that it will change their mood. However, you might want to leave it lying around for someone to discover in private. So long as one doesn’t feel manipulated, one might allow a smile to soften one’s sour face for a moment or two when looking through this. The photographs are really pretty good.

Categories: Depression, ArtAndPhotography