Follow the Elephant

Young Adult Fiction. What thirteen year old boy wants to travel on a hopeless quest to India with his grandmother? Not Ben Leeson, whose anger about his father's recent death has led him to escape into the isolated world of computer games. India is the last place Ben ever thought of visiting and his grandmother is the last person he'd ever dreamed of travelling with, but the ticket is already bought and Ben finds himself in India on a search for Gran's long lost pen pal, Shanti. As they search for clues across the huge continent, Ben finds himself strangely compelled to follow the magnificent elephants and the elephant boy-god Ganesh. Ben begins to see that real life can be more exciting than any computer game and that the dark mysteries of India may help him to come to terms with his father's death.

Beryl Young is the author of the best-selling young adult novel Wishing Star Summer (Raincoast, 2001) and Charlie: A Home Child's Life in Canada (Key Porter, 2009). She has a passion for elephants and for India where she has travelled three times in an unsuccessful search for her real life pen pal. She has three children and four grandchildren and lives in Vancouver, Canada.