Elephants Books

Tom is an average guy except that he's been out of work for too long and women keep leaving him. Then he finds a fantastic machine in the root cellar under the shed behind his house. This machine can transport anything anywhere and turn objects into gold or diamonds on request.
Together with his neighbor, Squidley, Tom sets out to improve the earth or at least make it less toxic. Only at the end of the book after savings the world a few times, does Tom find out the purpose of the machine. Along the way, they garner the attention of the IRS, FBI, NEA, USGS, a militant survivalist group calling themselves Salamanders, and a bunch of Baptists convinced that the world is coming to an end.
As a bonus, Tom and Squidley both fall in love.
Squidley is a great sidekick. The banter between Squidley and Megaloman (Tom) is highly entertaining. Squidley's reaction to his first sexual experience is priceless.
The lightly veiled references to pop culture carry the reader along. You can imagine that Tom and Squidley were your neighbors and sympathize with the great responsibility and coolness potential resting on their shoulders.
A truly fun read.

There's a really revealing passage around half way through this book when one of the authors is confronted by some live elephants in the wild and is reminded of "the real reason" for the massive effort of lobbying, espionage and endless dealings with beurocrats from various organisations that form the bulk of this book.

There's definately a love of wildlife and a genuine concern for biodiversity that motivates their actions, but the book turns into a sort of michael crichton novel, except that it's obviously much better written and more exciting.

It's hard to know whether to be inspired by the efforts the authors made to end the pernicious ivory trade or despair at the fact that all this effort was necessary in the first place. It's a depressing thought that "saving" this noble creature has become "our" responsibility and that many other species survival have become dependent on the whims of western consumers.

This is an exciting, well told account filled with evil, corupt businessmen confronted by two real-life heroes.

Involves two youngsters in a defunct circus who attempt to save the life of an old elephant. Well written. Suitable for children of ten or older I think; can be read to younger ones.

A friend lent me this book. I couldn't put it down the first night I got it. Most of the stories are great, one or two were ok, not even good. I would recommend this book for anyone over forty, for me it brought fond memories of life of the late forties and early fifties. I know that most of you in your forties were not born until 1960 or later, but if you were like me most of the TV movies when we were kids were from that era. I especially like the Perry Mason story, Perry's discription in the book is very different from the TV Perry Mason. For now this is a book I look forward to re-reading on a long cold winter's night with a large cup of hot chocolate in front of a warm fire.

I ordered this book for several of my first graders. They love jokes and this book did not fail them. I enjoyed watching and listening to them read the jokes to each other. They were excited about reading and didn't want to put this book down.

The Unordinary Elephant is not only a feel-good book for kids, but a fun opportunity to introduce a little modern Japanese culture. The writing style is slightly different from typical American children's books, making it refreshing. The illustrations are absolutely delightful and whimsical. I've worked in pediatrics for many years, and not only recommend this book for homes, but for clinic waiting rooms; also, because the text is in both English and Japanese, it would make a wonderful adjunct for any Japanese language course, regardless of the age of the student.

A fun story, with delightful illustrations. In an Alice-like dream, Poppy falls into the Vege-Men's land, where she is planted and sprouts. This edition is a facsimile reproduction of the book that was originally written in 1897. Rather long for today's children but will appeal to readers of turn-of-the-century children's books or collectors of Bertha Upton's Golliwogg series.

Simple and vibrantly colourful drawings with simple words of an endearing duo consisting of an elephant named Olaf and a mouse called Venus. We get to read about the sights that these buddies see - among them a pond, a statue, and a boy named Sam - on their outing in the park one sunny day. With a word and picture on one page and a scene containing the pictured word on the opposite, the simplicity of this book makes it easy for a toddler to practice some of the basics of reading - picture matching and picture-word matching - with your help. My daughter loves to have me read the book to her over and over again.

This book stars off with a beautiful picture of a mother elephant and her child playing at the beach. The two of them (Savi and her mother) spend the whole day at the beach, splashing in the water, eating bananas from the near-by banana tree, resting on the sand, and playing with Savi's sailboat. When the sun starts to set, Savi's mother says to Savi, "Now it's time to go home." Savi, like all little kids, doesn't listen and continues to play while her mother gets more and more annoyed. Finally Mother walks away into the shadows of the banana trees. At first Savi doesn't care, but then she begins to feel cold and hungry. That's when she sees the first banana. When she picks that one up, she sees another, then another. Savi follows this trail until she finds her mother waiting for her, and then runs to meet her mother. When Savi looks up she one last banana that she can't reach. When she asks her mother to pick it for her, her mother replies, "That banana is the moon. It will help us to see our way home."

The thing that makes this book so special is the pictures. Each picture looks like a picture of a quilt or embroidery block. The stitching is beautiful. Most of it seems to be flat, but there is the occasional thing that isn't just to emphasize it. The bananas looked like they are made of plastic for example, and many of the leaves on the banana trees look as if they stand out. The pictures are very well done. The reason I don't give this book five stars is that I'm not overly fond of the story line.

Loggie-log-log-log

Another cute Dumbo book my toddler enjoyed at bedtime. It's a good read.