Elephants Books

A Science Fiction Story

Armed role reversal.


3 out of 5

This anthology is broad in its treatment of the Indian Elephant as a game animal, during the colonial era. The first section is largely on the early observations made by hunters about the Elephant, its behavior and habitat.

If you like stories about hunting, the next section is the best. It begins with " Shikar as a Part of Life "by J.G. Elliott, an excellent account of the sporting life pursued by the British in India. Three stories on marauding rogue elephants stand out - " The Mad Elephant of Mandla", " Charged by a Rogue Elephant" & "Peer Bux, the Terror of Hunsur". They convey the terror and havoc that rogue elephants cause. They make exciting reading and are reminiscent of the tales by Jim Corbett.

The rest of the accounts in this book, that include pieces from Sri Lanka and Burma, almost seem indistinguishable from one another, a cavalcade of hunters pursuing their elephants. In fact some of it is revolting, hunters shooting indiscriminately at herds of elephants, wounding their quarries ant not following them up etc.

In fact my one criticism of the book, is that in his attempt to capture a broad range of stories, the editor has included quite a lot of mediocre writing.

This book also gives you an interesting look in at the lives led by the British Sportsmen in India. One cannot but be amazed at the abundance of wild animals, during this period, in South East Asia, and yet be saddened by their plight today.

Grown-ups have fancy names for their food, why can't kids?! Favorite kid foods like a ham sandwich and chocolate milk are given exotic names. With simple, eye-catching illustrations and funny text, learn how you can make Elephant Bread, Jungle Juice, Spooky Cream, Tree Trunk, Drink a Garden, Apple Swamp, Bunny Stick, Chocolate Cat, Eat a Sunset, Barnyard Hero, Bumbleberry Shake, Bear Berries, Snow on the Roof, Monkey Business, and Bubble Up Bright.

This book (and the series) are good first books for little ones (up to 6 months). They are simple, brightly illustrated and easy for small hands to manipulate. The board books are also good for the occasional chewing! I would recommend other books though...Polly Piglette's Surprise Party, Catepillar Spring, etc.

The Indiana Jones Find Your Fate series was one of the greatest things I remember from the 1980's. So much so that I have spent the last couple of years completing the set.

Mask of The Elephant is not bad in terms of the story, but still quite a way off from the superb first 5 outings of 'You' and Indy. The real difference here is the lack of the extremely talented illustrator David Mattingly.

The book is okay. It does offer animal facts and such but I did not buy the book for the story, instead I bought the book for the adorable art work. I am an elephant collector and the art work went right along with my collection. Smaller children will enjoy the story.

This book succeeds in presenting a message to parents if they read it to their young child. There is too much pressure to do everything - sports, music, etc. The only problem with this book is that the listening audience that it is aimed at is really too young to be caught up in the predicament that is presented.

"Polite Elephant" is a nearly-forgotten chapter of my very early childhood and thus has an extreme sentimentality factor which is why I purchased it and why I enjoy looking at it. Written in 1962 and illustrated by famed Busy Town artist Richard Scarry, it is extremely cute and about the most innocuous thing I've ever read. Basically it is just a few pages naively devoted to instructing small children in some Emily Post-style manners... the titular pachyderm is merely a non-imposing vehicle toward that end. The book itself is extremely simple, clearly aimed at very young children, probably those too young to read or those just beginning to learn. Aside from the simple declarative sentence on each page and the nearly unbearable sweetness of the illustration style there isn't anything here that will captivate kids much older than... maybe six. 'Elephant' doesn't even have a simple storyline to interest young readers. Golden Books classics like "The Poky Little Puppy" or another personally nostalgic work, "Scuffy the Tugboat," respectively, have more complex stories to tell and I assume would be more interesting to the discerning beginning reader. But then, I don't know anything about kids. Strange creatures. Anyway, I think this would be pretty appropriate for my 2 year old niece, but it's not exceptional... and any hardcover copy of this book as displayed on this page is probably a twenty-plus year-old antique best reserved for grown up kids like me who every once in awhile wish to reclaim just a bit of their childhoods.

A good read if you are a seasoned traveller in India and a fan of 'Travels on My Elephant' the cracking original which inspired this follow-up. However the book is disappointing in many ways as it seems to repeat the story of Shand's apprenticeship as a Mahoot only under new circumstances and a new teacher. Much of the mystery and adventure of the first novel could not translate into this sequel. On the plus side the prose, the plot and the writing craft unfold in a very readable way and one wonders why this author has not published more than three books.

In 'Rock Elephant,' Sam the outdoorsman returns to the past. Thirty years earlier, he went bass fishing with Ray for a newspaper story. As he did with many others in the interim -- all "vocational assignments." Since my hometown is extremely backward, Sam (a personable down-to-earth columnist for the local newspaper) was too busy having fun on his job to ask for a re-take until 30 years later. That's called "friendship" in Knoxville. No one gets really close to anothr as were are born with a cautious gene when it comes to relationships. I've "known" another celeb since November, 2001, and yet five years later he kept telling me "you don't know me." He's the one person in this town I was able to call when my oldest grandson died in Florida in a single-car wreck. I shared many photographs with him throughout the lonely years when locals refused to accept me as local, too. (I talk different, but that got me on NPR). I made two long-distance trips to prove I was telling the truth, first to copy an original newspaper-published booklet about an organization he knew nothing about; the other to take pictures on the Peabody campus to prove that something existed. Was he grateful? In no way. No thank you. For most of these five years, and one and a half earlier, I took many pictures of this town morphing from what I loved to what I detest and I gave him a collection of original drawings I photographed, and books of interest in this town's history. Did he use any of them? Not yet.

Sam is different. He puts on a facade of being dumb, but he's one of the smartest professionals I've met here. He spoke at the 2006 graduation at his Alma Mater where his own father had been a professor. I'm not impressed by college professors (I was married to one.) nor do PhDs influence my opinion of knowledge and accountability. My son has a PhD, two daughters-in-law got theres. But they lack personal skills their crazy mom obtained the hard way. I wrote to Sam that I hope he sent the graduates out of this town with a smile. He replied that he didn't hear many snores. He is a treasure, funny to camoflague his intelligence. His aunt Eva was my high school librarian, a genius who showed us budding scholars how she could write her name backwards. We were in awe of Eva Venable.

Life goes on and every fisherman know that you go with the flow. He became my local hero for bringing me back down to earth after that turbulent occurrence when I was knocked for a loop -- could not speak. Did I cry -- no! I went shopping. Who has time for such petty actions. I'm finally having fun being somebody again, not the singer I was in my youth all those years ago when life was good and I was innocent. Now, I'm the same person but innocent no more. Sam is a good person and a good friend to those he chooses. His witticisms may be classified as "nonsense" which he told me he writes, but he has wisdom beyond his years. Eva would be proud.