Title: Baby Rafi – The Runaway Giraffe
Author: Valerie Lee Baker
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-6641-4522-1
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book
Pages: 48
Reviewed by: Beth Adams

Read Book Review

Sometimes in life, when things begin to go wrong, they keep on going south, piling up one problem after another. This is what happens to Rafi, a baby giraffe born to his mother Grace and father George.

Author Valerie Lee Baker has created a children’s story with so many lessons of life and content regarding problem solving, youngsters will be totally absorbed in the continuing adventures of Rafi, and glued to the pages showing how he gets out of his situations. Along with artful illustrations highlighting just the right moments in the story, kids will love this adventure as they learn some very important lessons.

Being born to his personified parents in a beautiful meadow in Africa, with tall grass having white tops dancing in the breeze, and under a large tree with many birds singing, it was an idyllic way for baby Rafi to come into this world. Rafi was a wobbling baby, yet getting stronger every day. He had a desire to eat leaves from the acacia tree, but too short to reach the branches. So, he attempted to jump and to stand on his hind legs to reach the leaves, but to no avail. Being scolded by his Grandfather giraffe for not obeying his parents, Rafi is further dismayed.

One thing after another begins a series of life-threatening situations which take Rafi on a rather unwanted adventure. He injures himself during an attempt to jump, causing his

leg to swell up with pain. Not being able to walk and realizing he is further away from his parents, in an area of the jungle told not to venture into because it is not safe, he finds himself frightened by the sounds at night in the trees surrounding him. Then to add even more of a survival situation, the jungle catches fire and animals of all species are running for their lives. Rafi, injured, is challenged to his physical edge of endurance to escape the deadly fire when he then has to cross a river. Realizing giraffes cannot swim, he is once again challenged as a crocodile is seen; knowing that crocks eat giraffes. He luckily manages to grab hold of a floating log and crosses the river. Resting in a field Rafi is then captured by a human, and taken far away in the back of a jeep to a rescue center. It is there a final adventure is presented and Rafi rises to the occasion (I won’t spoil it).

There is a happy ending to all of this, as Valerie Lee Baker brings the story to a picturesque ending. “Listen to your parents,” can be the take-away from seeing what happened to Rafi in this story! Baby Rafi – The Runaway Giraffe is an exquisite book with imagination, excitement and morals, which will be reached for time-and-time-again by youngsters wanting a good bed-time story to cast off their thoughts into a dreamland of animals in the wild with human qualities. This reviewer hopes to read more about Rafi as he grows up; perhaps there will be a sequel in the making.