In the porcupine village, the families live five trees apart. They keep to themselves and observe boundaries so that they do not need to interact with each other. A young porcupine named Peter becomes very curious about what is going on in the forest. He ventures out and realizes that they can have a lot more fun if they are neighborly. The families read from the books of the forest and discover that their ancestors interacted with each other and had a wonderful town made of friends and neighbors. Changes began with the "littles," hitting the slopes.