Smeagull the Seagull as the title implies is the true story of a wild herring gull. Smeagull comes to the house near the shore every day and knocks on the sliding glass door. He knocks when he’s hungry, and the people who live there feed him. Smeagull rules the roost! Keeping up with him is an exhausting job, but when Smeagull disappears, it makes clear what an important family member Smeagull has become. There are few places on earth without gulls, both on shore and inland, and this makes them the perfect avatar for the Natural World. They are ubiquitous, voluble, intelligent and wild and they readily get to know human beings as individual people. Smeagull the Seagull leads children to pay attention to gulls and come to know and like and become attached to them. The book teaches a child, in a most personal way, that animals are precious and have needs and feelings, and family, just like us. It is a good and moral story intended to jump-start the next generation of conservationists. And it moves adults as much as children.