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| - The book opens with a prologue wherein a storyteller narrates the history of Katook, the book's hero, a small adolescent male Ring-Tailed Lemur. At the time of the storyteller's tale, Katook's home village of Kattakuk was suffering under an extremely severe and lengthy winter, wherein most lemurs are starving. The High Priest who rules them, an Aye-Aye named Gamic, holds a ceremony and collects offerings of figs to try and appease their god, the Fossah. Katook and his best friend later find the priests and their guards eating the offerings. They are discovered and are nearly caught, but Katook is saved by a mysterious appearance of the Fossah, which makes his eyes blue. Katook is caught, and his now-blue eyes are used as an excuse to exile him from his village to a beach on the edge of the
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| abstract
| - The book opens with a prologue wherein a storyteller narrates the history of Katook, the book's hero, a small adolescent male Ring-Tailed Lemur. At the time of the storyteller's tale, Katook's home village of Kattakuk was suffering under an extremely severe and lengthy winter, wherein most lemurs are starving. The High Priest who rules them, an Aye-Aye named Gamic, holds a ceremony and collects offerings of figs to try and appease their god, the Fossah. Katook and his best friend later find the priests and their guards eating the offerings. They are discovered and are nearly caught, but Katook is saved by a mysterious appearance of the Fossah, which makes his eyes blue. Katook is caught, and his now-blue eyes are used as an excuse to exile him from his village to a beach on the edge of the island on which it is located. On the beach, he defends hatching baby turtles from being eaten by birds. In return for this, he is taken by the baby turtles' mother on her back across the sea to the port city of Acco, intending to search for others of his own kind. After an altercation with thieves in the city, he meets up with Quigga, a vain and proud Quagga who has lost his herd. Quigga joins Katook, with whom he meets the Kolloboo. Because Katook is homesick for his own kind, the Kolloboo tell Katook to search for the scientist Nadab, who is staying with the Golden Monkeys, and who may be able to find creatures similar to him. They give him a map, a compass, and a message to give to Nadab. Travelling to find the Golden Monkeys, Quigga and Katook become lost in a desert, where they hide in some ruins to escape Bone Crushers until the Patahsave them. The Patah bring them to their tent guarded by Glyptodonts and present an elaborate demonstration. As Katook stays with the Patah, he learns of illusions and realizes that Gamic has been fooling the lemurs through trickery to give the appearance of miracles. The Chief's son wishes to have Katook's map and compass, but Katook refuses, saying that it his only way home. The Chief, annoyed, questions Katook's feeling of isolation and influences him to think that he is not wholly alone. The protagonists continue with the Patah, but are separated from them when the party is attacked by Phorcus. Quigga and Katook escape into a river, where they are saved by river dolphins and healed by the Boskii, who shelter them and suggest that Katook's blue eyes may not be a curse, but may be a blessing. The Boskii then tell him to follow the Butterflies, which lead them to the city of the Golden Monkeys. In the city of the Golden Monkeys, Katook finds Nadab. Instead of offering help, Nadab merely classifies them; later, Quigga is enslaved and Katook becomes the Golden Princess's pet. Katook explains his mission to the Princess, who helps him and Quigga escape. Their escape is narrow, but is implied to be facilitated by the Fossah and destroys many of the things whereof the Golden Monkeys are vain. Afterwards, Quigga reveals to Katook that he does not have an instinctive sense of direction and asks Katook to show him celestial navigation, which Katook has learned from the Patah. The next morning, Quigga sees his own herd in the distance and leaves Katook to join them. Katook is sad until he sees a strange shifting shape in the distance. This becomes the Fossah, who reveals that it has been accompanying and protecting Katook throughout the story. The Fossah then offers Katook the chance to live in a world known as "True Home", a paradise containing the dead and the unborn generations of life; but Katook refuses, deciding to return to save his own family. The Fossah then gives him a seed which he must plant in the ground. Katook is magically transported back to his own village, where he is brought to Gamic and his Indrii guards, but persuades the Indriis to let him go. When they do, Katook finds shelter among rocks, feeling that all hope is lost. As he sleeps, the seed which the Fossah gave him falls from his hands and into the soil. When he awakes, the sun is shining and the baobob trees are once more growing plentiful with figs. Gamic, humbled, joins him there, and the two reconcile, later to bring news of the bounty to the village. An epilogue then concludes the book.
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