Off the Cliff? Leaping Lemmings by John Briggs

ALL LEMMINGS LOOK ALIKE AND, SOUND ALIKE, AND ACT ALIKE.

But Larry is a lemming who marches to a different drummer. In fact, instead of squeaking, he plays the bongos. Instead of tunneling underground, he swims with the seals. When the other lemmings munch on moss, Larry orders pepperoni pizza.

YES, THIS LEMMING WAS AN ODD DUCK.

While the other members of his species prepare to leap off the cliffs, Larry spends some time with the puffins on the precipice, but finds that is a cliffhanger.

But still Larry is lonely for his fellow lemmings. He tries calling a lemming assembly and raises the question:

SHOULD ALL LEMMINGS BE THE SAME?

Yes! comes the common consensus of his species.

Poor Larry decides to try to live with the polar bears. But he soon figures out they want to have him over for lunch--and not as a guest!

It's hard being an outlier among the lemmings, who seem to live for that last leap! But this little iconoclast figures that the only way to save his species from their own folly is to become their leader!

Can Larry transform his species? That's the issue in John Brigg's Leaping Lemmings! (Sterling Books, 2016). In this humorous look at the issue of nature vs. nurture, Larry gives it the old college try in this light-hearted look at changing lemming nature, in a slight spoof at the difficulty of changing human nature as well. Like most human reformers, Larry's results are mixed, as Nicola Slater's inspired comic illustrations portray so well. "Hilarious storytelling is coupled with equally hilarious scenes," says Booklist.