From: chichild at sfpl.lib.ca.us <chichild>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 17:33:44 -0800

I have an extreme visceral reaction every time I even think of the book FAITHFUL ELEPHANTS. I do not consider this a children's book *at all,* and would not recommend it to anyone under grade 7, and think perhaps the only way to use this book is in a discussion of the "little" horrors of war. I could not lead such a discussion. I start to cry every time I think of those starving elephants, pitifully doing the trick they'd been taught, in hopes of getting a peanut. Why this book affects me more harshley than even HIROSHIMA NO PIKA, I cannot say. Certainly the child in that book is every bit as innocent a victim as those elephants. Perhaps because people watched that slow starvation, day after day, and did nothing to stop it?

I think I need to go home and feed my cats...

Carla Kozak Chinatown Branch, San Francisco Public Library chichild at sfpl.lib.ca.us
Received on Wed 05 Nov 1997 07:33:44 PM CST