Amazing real-life tales of animals — combined with delightfully surreal illustrations — make for a captivating book of a different stripe.

Whoever heard of a horse who lived in a house (while its owners lived next door)? Or two donkeys who had a marriage feast? Or an official spying cat who was wired for sound? These stories and many more — all quite strange, all very true — come from newspaper reports around the world. With paintings by Kathy Osborn hinting at magic realism and journalist Gail Ablow’s wonderfully witty text, this fascinating collection has much to say about creatures ranging from hippos to humans, who may in fact be the strangest animals of all.