If You Were an Elephant

June 1, 2021
Grades 1-3 What a treat when art and text are both delightful! That's the case with this eye-catching title introducing children to a familiar animal's personality. The text is pleasingly straightforward, informing readers about what elephants do and enjoy and emphasizing their social nature. "If you were an elephant," explains Straub, "you'd have ears big as tent flaps, skin thick as blankets." She goes on to explain to readers what else they would do as a pachyderm: use your trunk to turn this book's pages, protect your herd's babies by walking alongside them, swim while using your trunk as a snorkel, etc. A spread of more in-depth elephant facts closes the work. Throughout, the animals' affection and daily life on the African plains are beautifully illustrated by Jones in a highly textured style that calls to mind the friendly, simplified shapes of Eric Carle's collages, all in an appropriately golden palette of natural tones. Back matter offers more information on elephants, but there's plenty little ones can grasp from this book's winsome lines and genial artwork.

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September 1, 2021
An inviting voice employing the conditional "if you were" guides readers through a book that gives them a glimpse into life as an elephant (here, according to a note in the back matter, the African bush elephant). Readers learn about an elephant's habitat, social networks, diet, self-care (including mud baths), communication (elephants "drum out a warning," sending messages through the very ground, depicted in the illustrations as quilt-like patterns), and more. The text includes pleasing alliteration ("You'd guzzle gallons and gallons"), an exuberant tone ("You'd be a fountain spraying rainbows around!"), and satisfying and rhythmic verbs ("You'd slide and you'd roll and throw dirt all over"). Using a palette dominated by an earth-toned copper and incorporating subtle patterned textures throughout, Jones depicts the elephants in simple, rounded shapes with dots for eyes. Elephants are shown protecting, nurturing, and even soothing one another, images young readers will find comforting. (In one such illustration, observant readers will see two birds hugging atop an elephant's back.) An opening moment of humor is delightful: if you were an elephant, you'd "turn the next page with your trunk, not your hand." Either way, readers will want to keep turning the pages of this engaging and informative picture book. Julie Danielson

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from May 1, 2021
How might readers look, act, and live if they were wild African elephants? "If you were an elephant, you'd be the biggest animal who lives on the land." Thus begins the patterned text, with the titular phrase introducing a series of facts every few pages; all are told with a pleasant cadence and occasional rhymes or near rhymes. From the start, the text is engaging and full of whimsical imagery: After the opening text compares elephants' ears to tent flaps and their thick hides to blankets, it says: "You'd turn the next page with your trunk, not your hand." Readers learn about other animals of the savanna, herd behaviors, diet, mud baths, and more--along with a plethora of varied verbs and adjectives. The layout and artwork complement the text perfectly. The stylized art uses a broad but soft spectrum of colors and includes geometric patterns in the elephants' habitat. The elephants themselves are rendered simply in solid colors and sport winsome faces and stances. A particularly clever illustration shows a baby elephant learning from its mother how to stamp warnings on the ground. The large, gray, tusked mother and her pastel, tuskless child are backgrounded by the page's stark white; they stand high atop a crazy-quilt representation of sound waves. Good as a read-aloud and for emergent readers, it concludes in a way that leads equally gracefully to the author's notes or bedtime. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Worth a trumpet. (Informational picture book. 3-7)

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2021
An inviting voice employing the conditional "if you were" guides readers through a book that gives them a glimpse into life as an elephant (here, according to a note in the back matter, the African bush elephant). Readers learn about an elephant's habitat, social networks, diet, self-care (including mud baths), communication (elephants "drum out a warning," sending messages through the very ground, depicted in the illustrations as quilt-like patterns), and more. The text includes pleasing alliteration ("You'd guzzle gallons and gallons"), an exuberant tone ("You'd be a fountain spraying rainbows around!"), and satisfying and rhythmic verbs ("You'd slide and you'd roll and throw dirt all over"). Using a palette dominated by an earth-toned copper and incorporating subtle patterned textures throughout, Jones depicts the elephants in simple, rounded shapes with dots for eyes. Elephants are shown protecting, nurturing, and even soothing one another, images young readers will find comforting. (In one such illustration, observant readers will see two birds hugging atop an elephant's back.) An opening moment of humor is delightful: if you were an elephant, you'd "turn the next page with your trunk, not your hand." Either way, readers will want to keep turning the pages of this engaging and informative picture book.

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)