Elephants Books

In this book, the crows give Dumbo the feather, and he flies with it...The end! The book completely skips over Dumbo realizing he DID NOT need the feather to fly. So we miss maybe the actually significant points of the movie: Dumbo can do whatever he puts his mind to, and realizes that his big ears are an asset and not a liability. The little Golden Book version does not make this mistake.

This book is great for any Dumbo fan! I enjoy the illustrations, which were done by Disney artists of the time. The story is very much like the movie. One reviewer states that there is nothing about Dumbo losing the magic feather and believing in himself, however it is in there. Another, reveiwer felt some of the lines were odd. Personally, I adore those lines! The line about the pension makes me laugh out loud. This book might be more wordy than picture books of today, but as an educator and avid reader, I appreciate books that might make a child sit and pay attention for longer periods of time. Our society has become too instant, too immediate, and believe me those ideas are reflected in how little time children want to take on their school work.

You know this book is going to be good because it's Disney! This book is a great tale of a baby elephant growing up. Dumbo was unliked from the minute he was born because he was born with very large ears. Dumbo's mother was owned by a circus, Dumbo was born to be a circus animal. The day that Dumbo was in his first parade he was made fun of by the audience as he closely followed his mother. When Jumbo, Dumbo's mother, heard this she became furious and rambled into an outrage. The circus workers had to lock Jumbo up by demand of the ringmaster. The story is about an elephant finding a friend, his courage, and working toward his goal. This story will touch your heart in the deepest way possible. I recommend this book to anyone with and open mind and an open soul!

My daughter can't get enough of this book. She loves Dumbo and is trying to read it to herself.

I bought a collection of these older Golden Books stories thinking they would be sweet and "old-fashioned" but I have to admit they are all a little odd. Most were written in a time when things weren't totally geared towards kids as they are today. The book is very wordy and the pictures are fairly sparse. The story is a good one, but is buried in a lot of detail. Not great for a 2-year-old. Maybe older kids would like it better. This one ends oddly with Dumbo securing a good salary and a pension for his mother. Actually, maybe that is a good lesson for kids now that I think about it!

Okay, maybe I missed something by starting with this book instead of the first, but the cat/elephant thing is just odd. Very odd.
And this coming from a children's picture book lover and writer. This one is a pass for us. The pictures of the elephant are cute, though.

Reviewed by Samuel Peralta (age 6) for Reader Views (12/07)

I liked the story "When the Silliest Cat Was Small." When I read the title, I thought the story was about a cat, but it is not. In the story, a man wants to adopt a cat, but he really adopts an elephant. The elephant gets into lots of trouble. He makes a mess while taking a bath, gets bored easily, and does not like to sleep. At first, I was confused, because the man does not know he adopted an elephant, but after reading it again I thought it was funny and silly. I like the pictures. They made me laugh. I would recommend this book to my friends.

Parent's Note: At first, this story was a bit confusing. You keep expecting for the man to realize that his adopted pet is not a cat. That never happens. We read this story to Sammy three times. The first time he just had a blank expression. The other two times he enjoyed the pictures and thought the story was silly. It's a cute concept, but a bit out of the reach for young readers-- especially since the author never acknowledges what is obvious. Younger children will be confused and older kids will pause and enjoy it after a second read.

Gilles Bachlelet's cat is unusual - actually, it's an elephant... thus begins the fun story of a playful elephant as viewed by an owner who tries to understand him. 'Kitty' is adapting to his new home in strange ways after being chosen from a litter of other brightly colored elephants: he makes a mess, hides from food, and treats a toy with disdain. This is one of the most creative, best picturebooks to cross our shelf in quite some time, and deserves a prime place in any library.

A repeat visit with the Silliest Cat (My Cat, The Silliest Cat In The World, Abrams Books For Young Readers, 2006), that is really an elephant, is full of humorous illustrations that are presented in the same format. Almost every page has a descriptive sentence or phrase underneath an illustration: Four mini-elephants surround a bowl of milk and the sentence underneath says, He must drink his milk with gusto", and mother elephant dips her baby into a bowl of water and beneath it is the phrase, "Wash himself with enthusiasm." On one page, three out of four vignettes show the "cat" very busy pulling a plant out of a pot, trying to catch a goldfish, and tossing clothes out of a bureau while the fourth shows him slumped exhausted inside a drawer. A very waggish picture shows the silliest cat sitting on top of a piano in a pose that mimics a cat statuette to its right. Several pages only show text, however, there is always a picture opposite it. The bold font and the mostly good-sized color images are clearly visible on bright white paper. Preschoolers will enjoy the silliness displayed in this French import.

From celebrated French author Gilles Bachelet comes his latest children's book, When the Silliest Cat Was Small. His most recent book, My Cat, The Silliest Cat in the World, garnered much attention for its goofy storyline.

When the Silliest Cat Was Small describes the author's first days with his new "kitten" and the adjustments his pet makes to new surroundings. When the narrator goes to pick out a "kitten," he chooses one that has large, floppy ears, a winding trunk and weighs several hundred pounds.

The kitten--as evidenced by the illustrations--is, in fact, an enormous, hulking elephant--a detail to which the narrator seems impervious. The straight-faced humor throughout the book involves the "kitten" doing typical feline things--playing with toys, drinking milk and cleaning itself.

Bachelet's illustrations are charming, but very young readers will either be puzzled by the kitten's appearance or will point out that the author's feline friend is actually an elephant.

Armchair Interviews says: This concept seems a bit obtuse for the age intended.

Vazirani does a good job of opening a story in bursts and fragments, but I'm not sure it amounts to poetry. The flavor of the exotic seems often to be the real reason for these poems to exist, but they seem to be more about cultural migration than about language. The narrators of her poems seem such thoroughgoing materialists, it's hard to give them the sympathy the author requests.

One of the best books of poetry I've read in a long time! It's no wonder the poet has won so many awards since this book was first published!

Prediction: Vazirani will go far. Why? She is "exotic." She can throw in details from her Indian heritage and editors of journals and presses will salivate. That she has little real talent as a writer matters not at all. Her poetry is slack and self-indulgent. Perhaps she will mature into a better writer. In the meantime, her literary star will shine brighter and brighter, thanks to our current mania for anything even remotely exotic. That doesn't mean you have to buy her book.

Vazirani's first book of poetry gives ample illustration of the on-going celebration of the exotic in American poetry, regardless of its literary quality. There is little metaphorical or linguistic frisson in this poetry; nowhere can one find the rich use of language that marks contemporary Indian fiction writers writing in English. Vazirani is no Arundhati Roy or Kiran Desai, to name two women of her generation. Her poetry too often falls flat, with little sense of rhythm or lineation. She does indeed have a keen eye for detail and a sense of narrative line. Exotic details and stories set in foreign lands are fine,of course, but what makes a poem worth reading is its use of language. Perhaps her second book will be better.

These poems strike me as being, above all, extremely honest. They are about the experience of living between cultures, and all of the difficulties and rewards that go along with it. The book forms a tapestry of experience to such an extent that it forms a complete impression upon the reader as a whole -- not from the consideration of any one verse. So at first the verse are not impressive, but with repeated readings, the individual parts come together to form a cohesive whole in such a way that a single poem couldn't express, so it is understandable why Ms. Vazirani egards it as her first novel -- it conveys much the same impression as a well-written story would. Most of all, there is little or no feeling of regret or loss or a "feel sorry for me" ethic (something of a rarity in modern poetry) in being a part of two widely differing cultures -- a feeling of enrichment is conveyed instead -- a type of enrichment that cannot be gathered by living in a narrow little corner of one's own. These verses, by the way, will not only be understood by travellers, but also by "outsiders" of all ilks, to use Colin Wilson's phrase. A most impressive collection. With any luck, Vazirani will be publishing more of her poetry in the very near future.

I was very dissapointed with this book. I did find it interesting, and if the arguments were true they would be very convincing. Unfortunately, the authors use many different facts and figures to support their arguments, but do not cite where these facts and figures came from. These facts could all be made up. They could be all true. The reader has no way to know.
Therefore I don't find the book to be reliable.

I purchased this book in Hardcover from Amazon directly. Several good points are made with the problems of an automotive dependent society (the kid who spent his inheritance modifying a Van), but the solutions offered are simply incorrect or incomplete (the old 'raise gas tax' ruse). The Authors, however, are dead right in their criticism of the corrupt 'traffic engineers' (if you build it, they won't come!) and 'build, build, build!' method of non-smart development. They also are able to dissect the failed solutions of the others, such as "carpool" lanes and others(if they work and are used, they will also have traffic, causing the carpooling parties to drive solo since they have nothing to gain. Ergo, if they work, the fail).

However it is their demand for a "fair" (exorbitant) level of Petrolleum (Gas) taxation that causes them to lose credibility in my eyes. Yes, fuel taxes alone do not cover the cost of building roads, and yes, non-drivers have to 'pay' for the roads. But it is largely irrelevant given that most drivers, especially commuters pay heavy taxation to all levels of government, far more than they receive, even counting road building and maintenance. Furthermore raising petrolleum taxes will increase the cost of shipping goods in trucks from UPS to Supermarket supply vehicles, raising the price on everybody. Also, as much as 80% of all emissions are from COMMERCIAL vehicles (i.e. trucks), not passenger cars.

Whether they like it or not, the Internal Combustion engine has allowed a level of prosperity that horses could have never given us.

3 stars for being long on what's wrong, and short on what to do about it.

The Elephant in the Bedroom is a concise analysis of the automobile as a sugarcoated transportation system that has been sold to our country without any justice given to other transportation systems. One of the key questions brought up by the authors is "How much does the use of the automobile as the primary transportation system actually cost?" The authors bring up the seldom-discussed issue of "Who actually pays for the 'free parking' offered by commercial stores and restaurants?" Other issues discussed include gasoline taxation, political land use, automobile-driven economics, and various inefficiencies related to the current transportation system.

This is an excellent book that shows how the "highway lobby" (real estate developers, highway construction companies, politicians, trucking companies, automobile manufacturers) has gotten the American taxpayer to subsidize the use of automobiles. Fuel taxes in 1993 (when the book was written) amounted to $0.28 per gallon, while the subsidies (borne by sales and property taxes) are estimated at an additional $3.50 per gallon! The authors go on to show that the subsidies lead inevitably toward insolvency of public transporation systems, which require *further* subsidies from the taxpayers. Many societal ills are shown to be directly or indirectly due to this one fact -- that the *true cost* of operating a vehicle is hidden from the user.

Their solution would make Adam Smith proud: lower the property and/or sales taxes dramatically and raise the fuel tax and cost of parking so that users pay for the services they receive. This would lead to increased ridership on public transportation (to the point where these could once again become private companies instead of publicly supported agencies -- heck, there might be multiple companies *competing* for the privilege of transporting you!)

It's time for me to finish this review so I can start writing my congress-critters! Buy this book and join in the fun.

Well for this title I never recieved it. And I m;ust have dropped the ball on this one because I order so much from Amazon but this never came for me and so now seeing that I actually ordered it I'm upset and the service from which it was ordered completely sucks because I never got this book. I would not recommend using this group again.

This book is actually only eighty or so pages long with average type face. The rest of the book is just the reference page. The price of the book may be expensive to some people and Im just giving a warning beforehand that if you can check this book out at a local bookstore and look through it before purchasing it online to save some cash then do so because its a pain when you order something via the internet and then when you get it, it turns out that it isnt what you were expecting, or you felt that it wasnt worth the money you've spent on it.

Anyway, the book is a sociological examination of basically "knowing something but not publicly acknowledging what you know but rather keeping it to yourself". Topics like see no evil, the emperors invisible cloths, dont rock the boat, bite your tongue, etc. This book is a collection of all these things people come across. From a price to content ratio, I give the book 1 star. But if you have money to burn and your interested in a the topic then whatever. Frankly because the book is just a collection of ideas that most people know already, a average person can probably skim the book in 15 or so minutes and come away with all the ideas the book has to offer.

As the child of a family that hid everything, it is refreshing to read a book that values the truth!

I originally heard the author being interviwed on NPR and was intrigued by the topic. Mr. Erubavel aptly laid out the "elephants" that he would discuss. His topics were right on the mark and every reader can identify with one of his examples either through personal or through a family member or friend's experience.

When I finished reading the book, I wanted to hear more about "how to" discuss these secrets especially when people seeking answers or resolution before a loved one dies. I see this a lot working around hospice patients and their families. Often long after the death of a friend ora family member; there is still unfinished business amongst the survivors and that "elephant" perhaps has grown even larger in size.

I like that this book has both languages, but thought the story and vocabulary were pretty weak. My daughter wasn't very interested. I wish amazon had Boynton or Eric Carle avaliable in Italian.

When I picked this book from the shelf I was immediately entranced by the extraordinary illustration of an elephant named Elmer. It wasn't so much that I thought my daughter would enjoy the read, I knew I would. Elmer is a character that I'd never encountered before, but the idea of a patchwork elephant struck me as simple but brilliant. Anyway, last Wednesday evening my daughter became the testing ground for this work. She was delighted the moment the book was opened. On the first page we see our patchwork elephant against the backdrop of rainbow colours. And what is he thinking? You can tell from the gorgeous red hearts which represent his thoughts that he is truly in love with colour. His colourful and amusing journeys, which would delight any child, include seeing a snowman, balancing fruit on his trunk and eating a popsicle at the beach. This book can be enjoyed by a very young child with the attention getting colours and shapes and by the same child when they later reach the reading stage. Having read Elmer's Colours I've now determined to track down the other titles in the series.

The book has a very funny translation. We had to retranslated
every page and sticked it over-

Diem-Tu

The Turkish and English are not translated faithfully. I bought this book for my bilingual daughter and was dissapointed that it had errors. She likes the pictures though.

My 7 year old son loved this book and I was thankful to have found it quite by accident. Halfway through the book, he turned to me and said 'We have something in common; I can not sit still and I feel jumpy inside.' And I watched as he teared up when Eukee talked to the doctor about having trouble with friends. By the end, when Eukee is excelling with his sticker chart, my son was ecstatic as he talked about his own behavior plan. It opened the door to a wonderful conversation about learning challenges and differences.

...elephants don't jump. If an author is going to start trying to relate some hyperactive kid to something, at least get a little more grounded in reality.

Second, just another entry into the series of books such as "A.D.D. not BAD" (oh, how clever), designed to do nothing other than patronize and give the "green light" into, not only acting up, but simple bad behavior. It's ok to be a miscreant because it's not your fault. Whatever you do, it's not your fault. If this is the message you want to convey to your kids, this is the book for you.

If however you wish your kids to be accountable for the actions, despite whatever "conditions" they may have, and instill in them some sense of right and wrong, avoid this garbage.

This is truly a fantastic resource for the ever increasing number of "jumpy jumpy elephants" in american households. If your child is an uncontrollable hyperactive mess of energy, order your copy today. However, I feel it is incorrect to call this listing a book, as that would require at least 2 pages. This might be more accurately described as a "hardcover pamphlet" or a "cruel joke for people with too much money and bad parenting skills".

I wanted a simple, enjoyable book for my six year old son who was diagnosed with ADHD and my doctor recommended this one. I am glad I took her advice. My son and I read it over and over and over again.

This book may be confusing to adults, but to someone who is intimidated by potty training it apparently makes perfect sense. As a stay at home mother of four BOY, COULD I RELATE TO THIS BOOK!!! Of course it can be confusing, so can 2 and 3 year olds. If you have never given your children "positive attention" for their imaginery playmates or let them have a snack on the toilet hoping they'll stay on for a few more minutes and pee in the toilet instead of the carpet this book is not for you. The artwork is simple but my kids recognize and enjoyed the legos, and other familiar toys and objects. While maybe not so aesthetically appealing to adults, my kids found the artwork to be just right. Oskar, (I'm pretty sure that's his name) his older brother is six but I thought it was pretty clear Bertil was three. It follows the fantasy problems (his fear of the bathroom's weird plumbing noises and strange pipes) and the humorous solutions of the adults to negotiate him back into the bathroom and off of potty chair in the hallway. This is definitely a boy or a tomboy book, the short choppy dialogue, fierce elephants and underwear in the toilet humor attest to that as does the ultimate solution wrought by Dad and the neighbor man who helped fixed the car. Although you never know, one of my boys is as devoted to this as to the very feminine Olivia the pig. And like the Olivia books the author throws in a lot of humor for the adults. It appears Bertil's mom's eyes are rolling as he explains it was the elephants' fault once again. This book definitely deserves a looksee.

This somewhat strange book has a confusing, perhaps just inconsistent plot. Bertil, an imaginative six-year old, believe (or pretends to believe) that a pair of elephants live in the bathroom (it appears that they are inspired by the trunk-shaped pipe leading from the bathtub to the floor). Bertil's invention allows him to blame his own mishaps and mischief on the two elephants. Eva Lindstrom's casual, not to scale illustrations clearly show Bertil pouring a bucket of bath water on the floor and letting a spray nozzle point upwards, thus making a flood in the bathroom. However, Bertil has the convenient excuse of the elephants:

"'It's the elephants!'
`The what?' says Mom.
"That's right. Bathroom elephants, A pair of them. They live there,' say Bertil pointing under the tub. `They spray a lot' `....They squirt with their trunks even though I've told them not to' he says, sounding upset."

The imaginary playmate/animal is a common motif, usually a substitute for a real friend, but here a scapegoat for Bertil's misadventures. He gets lots of positive attention from his parents and younger brother, and he floods the bathroom, cracks the ceiling, and flushes Dad's underwear down the toilet with impunity-he's got it good.

So, perhaps the authors wanted to make something original out of this device, because the elephants abruptly turn in Bertil's enemies. Perhaps, they wanted to illustrate the difficulties of potty-training (usually, although of course not always, accomplished by age six, by the way) , because this is when the elephants first seem threatening to Bertil. They make strange noises, and Bertil runs from the bathroom; later he won't enter the room without his mom. She makes plans to starve the elephants. However Bertil hears more sounds when he's sitting on the toilet, and he runs and falls down--his butt prominently displayed in the picture. Here, Bertil looks positively scared lying half-naked on the floor: "'They tried to kill me'! screams Bertil. `I'm never going in there again. Never!'" Is this some comeuppance for his earlier fabrication? Just what was the point of changing the elephants from allies to enemies? The author's point of view is never clear, the parents are psychologically inept (it appears they resort to lying to "get rid" of the elephants), and Bertil is not especially appealing. Perhaps the book was better in the original Swedish.

There is often some difficulty when a book is translated, but this book is more strange than most. It's not that there is no plot exactly, it that the meager plot there is doesn't make any sense.

I bought this out-of-print book because I was researching the issue of the ordination of women, which C.S. Lewis opposed. The bad news is that this issue is only hinted at in such essays as "Membership". (I should have been looking for "God in the Dock".) The good news, however, is that this is a fantastic collection of incredibly insightful essays--mainly on issues of religion. If you have read and enjoyed Weight of Glory, this will be a valuable addition to your collection. In the collection's final essay of the same title as the work itself, Lewis is warning Anglican seminary students that, if they fail to change the direction of the church and set its anchor again in the rock of Christ, members will begin to leave for the Catholic Church. Something tells me, if Lewis were alive today, he would have already made this leap--as our family has done.

Different essays about Christianity, including evolution, the efficacy of prayer, and more.

Lewis's shorter works were generally originally composed as speeches or as articles for periodicals. Various sets of them were collected and published in book form both during his life and after his death. Trying to determine what works are in what collections is difficult - most works appear in more than one collection, some works appear under more than one title, and some collections appear under more than one title.

To aid readers, in this review I've listed the works in this collection, with notes indicating other collections they have appeared in. Where a work has appeared under more than one title, I give both titles separated by a slash.

Table of Contents:

"Membership" (1), (2)

"Learning in War-Time" (1), (2)

"On Forgiveness" (1), (2)

"Historicism" (2), (3), (5)

"The World's Last Night" / "Christian Hope - Its Meaning for Today" (2), (4)

"Religion and Rocketry" / "Will We Lose God in Outer Space" (2), (4)

"The Efficacy of Prayer" (2), (4)

"Fern-Seed and Elephants" / "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" (2), (3), (5)

Notes:

(1) also published in "The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses" / "Transposition and Other Addresses"

(2) also published in "Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces"

(3) also published in "Christian Reflections"

(4) also published in "The World's Last Night and Other Essays"

(5) also published in "The Seeing Eye and Other Selected Essays from Christian Reflections"

Recommendations:

This is an unnecessary collection. It will overlap almost any other collection of Lewis' shorter writings on Christianity you might buy, and will give you no work you cannot get elsewhere. Don't buy it.

So what should you get?

If you are interested in Lewis's shorter works, my best advice is to get "Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces", which, as of the time of this writing, is available from Amazon UK but not Amazon US. That collection consists of about 130 short works by Lewis. The works in that collection are mostly, but not exclusively, Christian.

If your interest in Lewis's shorter works is restricted to those on Christianity, and your budget or enthusiasm does not run to "Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces", then my second-best advice is to get any or all of the following (they don't overlap significantly, and between them they include most of Lewis's shorter Christian writings):

"God in the Dock - Essays on Theology and Ethics"*

"The World's Last Night and Other Essays"

"Christian Reflections"

"The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses"

* Be careful - there is a UK Fontana paperback lurking about called "God in the Dock - Essays on Theology" that is substantially shorter than the "God in the Dock - Essays on Theology and Ethics" collection. A full version of "God in the Dock - Essays on Theology and Ethics" was published in the UK under the title "Undeceptions - Essays on Theology and Ethics".

It was like reading a high school term paper. The book that was used for a constant source is a better option.

I found this book invaluable in my research on the play, The Elephant Man, by Bernard Pomerance. It is objective in ways that most work on this subject is not. I highly recommend it.