One stormy night, a goat and a wolf find shelter from a storm in the same tumbledown hut. They can’t see each other in the dark, and cracks of thunder drown out the fragments of their conversation that would give their identities away. The wolf has caught a cold and can’t smell the goat. One Stormy Night pulses with a delicious tension that will appeal to adults as well as children.

The two animals exhibit an uncharacteristic but welcome restraint and concern for each other’s feelings. "The goat was just about to say: Your voice sounds like a wolf’s, low and gruff. But he thought this might be rude, so he decided against it. The wolf was just about to say: Your laugh sounds like a goat’s, high and bleating. But he thought this might offend his companion, so he stopped himself."

Again and again, as they talk about their dwelling places and favorite foods, the two narrowly miss learning the truth. Predator and prey entertain suspicions about each other early on, but as their conversation progresses, they discover how much they have in common and relax into the beginnings of friendship.

The illustrations remind me of the scratchboards I loved to make in elementary school — a layer of black paint scraped away to make the picture reveals a layer of color crayon below, invariably a surprise. In Hiroshi Abe’s hands, however, this primitive art form takes on a subtlety appropriate to Yuichi Kimura’s fable, which implies that none of us are prisoners of our genetic makeup or social conditioning, that peaceful co-existence is always possible.

"Do you want to get together again?" suggests the goat as the storm blows over and the stars begin to glimmer through the retreating clouds. "We could have lunch." The new friends agree on a meeting place and a password, then part company before they ever get a look at each other. "But what would happen when the two animals met again, in broad daylight, there at the foot of the hill?" The sequel, One Sunny Day, answers this intriguing question. Meanwhile, don’t miss One Stormy Night.