Trapped!

Eight fables that trust you to find the lesson yourself.

Bunny wants some tasty flowers. Spider just wants more flies. Squirrel is certain tomorrow's haul will make up for today's shortfall. In Trapped!, eight curious creatures chase what they want and walk straight into the invisible patterns that snare us all.

These aren't tidy fables with a moral bow at the end. Each story stops at the moment of being stuck and leaves the rest to you. Drawn from the systems-thinking archetypes in Peter M. Senge's The Fifth Discipline, the tales quietly reveal the traps we fall into again and again: chasing a delayed result, treating symptoms instead of causes, lowering the bar one reasonable step at a time, escalating a rivalry no one wins.

Hand-illustrated in watercolor and written for ages 4 through 104, Trapped! works as a bedtime read, a classroom spark, or a mirror for grown-ups who recognize a little too much of themselves on the page. It's also a natural fit for social-emotional learning (SEL): instead of naming feelings or handing over rules, the stories grow self-awareness, empathy, and thoughtful decision-making by letting readers recognize their own patterns in the characters. A closing afterword and a complete Facilitator's Guide-with discussion questions tiered for young children, older kids, teens, and adults-turn every fable into a conversation for families, educators, therapists, book clubs, and teams.

Read one aloud. Sit with the silence after. Then ask the only question that matters: have I ever been in this story?