“Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others,” Alan Watts wrote in his mind-expanding 1950s meditation on what reality really is. Although our species has a long history of using nonhuman animals as metaphors for understanding human reality, we are only just beginning to accord our fellow creatures the dignity of their own reality by growing a new understanding of their complex consciousness.

Nonhuman animals, it turns out, have a great deal to teach us not only about reality but also about our immutable quest to bend reality to our will — that is, about the art of problem-solving.

In Wild Ideas (public library), researcher, educator, and environmental writer Elin Kelsey and Korean-Canadian artist Soyeon Kim — the creative duo behind You Are Stardust, that wonderful picture-book teaching kids about the universe in illustrated dioramas — present an imaginative and illuminating catalog of various animals’ problem-solving strategies, from how dung beetles use stars as a navigation system to the procrastination tactics of pigeons.

Each example in the book comes from Kelsey’s interviews with scientists who study the respective species, brought to life in Kim’s breathtaking 2D/3D dioramas.

In addition to the heartening celebration of our kinship with other beings, there is also a subtler, almost Buddhist undertone to the project: So much of our anguish in the face of obstacles comes from judging them as bad and resisting that particular manifestation of reality, causing ourselves enormous distress in the act of this resistance — and yet here is a powerful reminder that obstacles are neutral events and a natural part of life, which other species face as a matter of course and without negative judgment.

Step outside. Look. If squirrels can learn to cross roads by watching people, what can you learn by watching squirrels?

All around you, creatures seek solutions.

Pigeons procrastinate.

Bees calculate.

Elephants innovate.

Bears keep count.

You turn to friends and family for support, and so do other animals.

Ravens use gestures to offer ideas. Hyenas cooperate to help the hunt.

When they’re seeking direction, dung beetles look to the heavens and steer by the Milky Way.

Complement Wild Ideas with a very different take on how nonhuman animals enrich our human lives — Beastly Verse, a glorious illustrated celebration of famous poems inspired by animals.

Illustrations courtesy of Owlkids Books