Lost Little Elephant

Kindergarten-Grade 2-As an African elephant tries to reach his cousin in India, children learn about world geography. On his indirect route, Little Elephant finds himself first in Cape Town, and then in Cairo, Rome, Barcelona, Paris, London, Greenland, Toronto, New York City, Mexico City, the jungles of South America, Sydney, and Bangkok before finally reaching Delhi. The playful and childlike color illustrations incorporate many but not all of the interesting landmarks and geographical features mentioned in the text. A sidebar for each site shows Little Elephant drinking water from a river or lake in the area, eating food representative of the culture, and making use of various forms of transportation. The final pages include two quizzes that ask youngsters to recognize landmarks and recall facts and a map of the world showing Little Elephant's route. While children and adults with an interest in travel may enjoy this colorful approach to geography as a springboard for discussion about places and culture, the story is not strong enough to keep a group engaged and the pages are busy. Teachers who wish to introduce world geography might prefer photography or illustrations that more clearly represent the places visited.
Adele Greenlee, Bethel College, St. Paul, MN
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An invitation from a cousin in Delhi prompts a South African elephant's trip around the world. Eighteen destinations later, readers may feel nearly as exhausted as if they had made the trip themselves. Little Elephant's first stop is Cape Town, where a bustling city scene and its description bog down in extraneous informational sidebars. Whether Cape Town, Cairo ("After Little Elephant had rested awhile, drunk the Nile dry... and eaten most of the valley's date trees... he decided to keep walking") or Paris, each stop receives a similar whirlwind tour, with too much to see, read and absorb. While in Barcelona, for instance, readers learn about the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, "designed by a famous Spanish architect named Antoni Gaudi. They [sic] started building it in 1882, and it still isn't finished!" Also name-dropped: paella (neither explained nor adequately depicted), the La Ramblas walkway and more. With such cursory treatment, these numerous stops may be indistinguishable and repetitive to untraveled youngsters. Although ill-suited to an already busy story, British artist Rayner's striking style combines what appear to be cut paper, pen, paint and chalk. Her palette vibrates with hot pinks, oranges and purples, striated into an intriguingly distressed yet energetic look. If only there were (literally) less ground for her to cover. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.