diplomatic gifts

Explores how historical figures, including Julius Caesar, Medici, and Josephine Bonaparte, have used animals as a means of symbolizing their power, ingenuity, and strength.

Illustrations and text describe the efforts of travel writer Eliza Scidmore to bring the cherry blossoms of Japan to her home in Washington, DC, in the beginning of the twentieth century.

Zarafa, a beautiful and graceful giraffe, is offered as a gift from the ruler of Egypt to the king of France, and she is sent by boat up the Nile, across the sea, and five hundred miles by land to Paris, where she is greeted and cheered upon her arrival.