What Do You Look For in a Friend?

Many of us have notions of who we want our friends to be. We may want our friends to look like us, to be interested in the same things that interest us, or to be from the same background as we are. But friendship is at once both simpler and more complicated than this. When we need a friend the most, what matters is the willingness of another being to assume that role. Owen & Mzee, a wonderful book about a baby hippo and an aged tortoise and their friendship born out of the disaster of the 2004 tsunami, shows us a side of friendship that is simple and profound. Two animals--different species, different age--have formed a bond that transcends those seeming boundaries. This is a great story.