by Jenni Desmond
Enchanted Lion Books
11/06/2018, hardcover
SKU: 9781592702640
In this, Jenni Desmond's third nonfiction children's book about one of the large, endangered animals of Earth, we join a young boy as he learns about The Elephant.
From Africa to Asia, the elephant makes its home. Light on their feet, despite their great weight, these magnificent creatures appear light and graceful because they're always walking on their tip-toes. They have excellent hearing and can detect the rumblings of other elephants from six miles away. And, just like humans being right handed or left handed, elephants can be right tusked or left tusked! The recipient of the 2016 New York Times Best Illustrated award for her book The Polar Bear, Desmond creates illustrations that are scientifically accurate, strikingly detailed, and beautifully rendered in collage, paint, and colored pencil.
Target age: 5 to 8
Reviews:
- A 2018 EUREKA! Honor Award Winner
- A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018
- A The Children's Book Review Best Non-Fiction Picture Book of 2018
- A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Gift Guide Selection of 2018
- A CBC Hot Off The Press Selection of October 2018
- A Capitol Choices Book of 2019
- Selected for the 2019 Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choices List
"There are quite a few children's books about these magnificent, endangered mammals, and this one is among the best. The accessible text is supplemented by art that drives home such points as the differences between Asian and African elephants and the way an elephant foot's anatomy resembles a woman's (dark-skinned) leg in high heels. Perhaps the best example is the illustration highlighting the amazing reality of an older male bull's 100-pound, 8-foot-long tusk: The book's protagonist and a friend stretch out, foot-to-foot, along the tusk of a benign-appearing elephant, as the text states that the tusk is the same length as two seven-year-old children toe to toe. And what fun seeing the boy atop the formidable pyramid of fruit that represents a bull elephant's diet of 700 pounds of plant matter a day! The protagonist is dark-skinned, as is his friend, and the appearance of only one white human face is refreshing, as is the matter-of-fact, nonpreachy tone used when discussing saving elephants from extinction. The text covers elephant territory, anatomy, behaviors, and more, ending with comparisons between sleep for elephants and sleep for humans -- a perfect ending for a well-executed book. A must-have for anyone who loves elephants." -- Kirkus Reviews
About the Author:
Jenni Desmond is an award-winning illustrator, artist and picture book author of Migration and Snow Birds. She has won The New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award, the Camrbidgeshire 'Read it Again' picture book award, and a Maurice Sendak Fellowship. Jenni lives in East London UK with her husband and baby daughter. When she's not in her studio, you'll find her cooking, cycling and swapping city life for long hikes down by the sea shore or up in the hills and the mountains.