Each picture book in the Lima Bear Stories series delivers messages for children to help them handle everyday situations with siblings and friends, including tolerance, honesty, and courage. Basic characters, each with their own distinct personality, appear and reappear throughout the series, allowing children to get to know them and anticipate how they are likely to act in different situations. Extended learning and activity questions are included to allow parents and teachers to further encourage children to become involved in the concepts presented.
After Plumpton the opossum loses his back, Lima Bear and his clever friends become detectives on the search. They try new and different ways of thinking in order to try and solve the mystery—even having to band together to protect each other in times of danger. The primary concept presented in the story is that the tolerance of differences in others yields benefits.