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This delightful book ends with a resoundingly happy ending.

Hilarious full-color illustration of the animals searching through garbage at the dump, seeking clues about where Rabbit's family was moving.

The deeper I delve into this picture book about stuffed animals, the more apparent it becomes to me that this book is mostly a comedy of manners.

Often Julian Fellowes's words are LOL funny.

But in that dialog just cited, Julian Fellowes used "KIND" perfectly. IMO.

And I do think it's incumbent upon those who raise children, or write for them, or review books designed for them... to highlight ethics and integrity and, yes, kindness.

Maybe adding some words, but mostly teaching by example.

All too often, fellow Goodreaders, do you like it when people bandy about the word "kind"?

I don't. Usually it involves insincerity, or treating people like charity cases.

Even worse is if you say something you mean, and it's positive. Then the recipient responds, "That is very kind of you." Heck, I'd rather have somebody throw a cream pie in my face.

Readers are treated to useful concepts about manners.

Nell reprimands Doc for speaking sharply to Cora.

Nell: "You shouldn't have said that about the clothes."

Doc: "Why not? It's true."

Nell: "It's true, but it isn't kind."

In Part Two we meet the rabbit who was thrown away by accident.

Fellowes sets the scene: We learn, "it was a bright sunny day at the rubbish dump. Even the rats seemed to be taking things easier and looked less shifty than usual."

The author's imagination is delightful; just enough anthropomorphism for my taste.

More delicious social satire concludes with the Julian's portrait of Cora -- reminiscent of Violet in "Downton Abbey," but young and fetching and fascinatingly nuanced.

Although, unlike other life forms on earth -- real or stuffed, we humans do have karma happen to us, not merely "life."

To learn more about what the ancient concept of karma might mean now, since the world shifted into the Age of Awakening on Dec. 21, 2012, you might find it helpful to google on this:

"Karma Made Spiritual But Not Religious"
Be sure to include the quotation marks in your search.

Neil explains how he became abandoned. He fell out of a pram at a crossing (baby carriage at a traffic light.

Nothing intentional. Seems as though life happens to stuffed animals, just as it sometimes seems to do for humans.

When an author writes that vividly, you might think that you don't have any need for imagination.

Maybe that is true for folks who haven't yet learned how to make an imaginative connection when reading.

But what is also true? Julian Fellowes set my imagination flying at twice the usual vividness, soon as I read the first page of this beautifully written kid-sized novella.

In many a picture books, the stuffed animals -- or other human stand-ins -- become lively because they're drawn by extraordinarily skillful and talented picture book illustrators.

But Julian Fellowes' writing is so superbly nuanced, he brings all of those characters to life.

After a ride at the front of the rubbish truck, Doc is suffering. He's helped by Humphrey, a blue (stuffed) bear and also Neil, a brown (stuffed) bear.

Doc is a bear too, pictured with a very convincing stethescope around his neck.

"Toy Story" movies aren't the only way to create imaginative stories about toys who secretly come alive... whenever the humans aren't watching.

The rule that a toy must not move in sight of a Human is an absolute one.

Big drama: A shakeup threatens the lives of the existing toys at the children's hospital.

Julian Fellowes's writing voice is famiiar to me from "Downton Abbey" and "Gosford Park," but I'm also hearing the overtones of his personal voice.

Seems to me, he's not writing FOR characters now, in screenplays. Instead, he's writing FROM himself. How lovely to meet him this way.