The most recommended elephant books

My family loves to laugh, and we introduce our children to books that build the funny bone. For this reason, I have a copy of every picture book written by the delightful Mo Willems. Hands down, my favorite is Let’s Go for a Drive! Here’s the story: Elephant and Piggie amass the accessories necessary to spend a day tooling around town. We’re talking sunglasses, a map, an umbrella. They are set to go when they realize they don’t have a car. Somehow, the two friends make the best of it. Good news: There are 25 Elephant and Piggie books to enjoy again and again.

On a whim, Mark Shand bought an elephant called Tara and rode 600 miles across India. He describes parts of the country in the east that tourists do not frequently visit, and the small team are around him are colourful characters. He is a witty storyteller.

Shand falls in love with Tara and is effusive in her praise throughout the book—occasionally, it feels a little over the top. It did not surprise me to learn that he spent the rest of his life campaigning to provide vital migratory corridors for elephants. In 2004 he established a charity called The Elephant Family, which still exists today.

What did surprise me was discovering that this wild and free author is the brother of Queen Camilla – he certainly does not have the typical tastes of an aristocrat. Mark Shand died in a tragic accident at a party in 2014. 

My kindergartener shared, “I like this book because it’s really silly, and I think it would be great for everyone, too. If we had a new toy and it broke, we wouldn’t act as dramatic, so I think it’s fun to see.”

An added bonus about this book is that she can read it herself and loves the “dramatic” parts.

I was lucky enough to read this book when it was still a manuscript. It’s the story of 10-year old Hastin, driven by poverty but also by his impulsiveness and youthful optimism. Running away from home to make money to help his mother and sick sister, Hastin ends up far from his village in India, and in the clutches of a cruel circus owner. He also becomes keeper to a baby elephant, Nandita. As an outsider to the setting of this book, Lynne Kelly dug in, persevered, and did the hard work of writing the story with respect and care. The baby elephant is a pure delight. 

This book is such an excellent and innovative example of an interdisciplinary approach to animal history. Susan Nance blends current scientific thinking about the welfare, agency, and cognition of elephants with a detailed and highly engaging look at the role of these animals in circus history. This is a wonderful model of how to write animal history, an endeavor that isn’t always that straightforward because archival records tend to focus on human lives, deaths, and achievements.

The premise of this book gets big points for originality: Lexington Willow is orphaned as a toddler by a tornado, literally blowing into the life of elephant Nyah, who protects and comforts the little girl in the storm and forms a mysterious connection with her. The wind is also a character in the book, hanging around long after the tornado. It knows things Lex doesn’t, and sometimes whispers to her.

The Elephant’s Girl portrays friendship, secrets, and a family’s pain in search of healing. Toss in a ghost for good measure, and what’s not to love?

This book is an enduring memory from my own childhood. I remember my parents used to read this to me, and they put on funny voices for each of the characters. I love the message of this book, that even though you are different from others, we can all coexist and learn to celebrate our differences. The illustrations are also so charming and really bring the story to life. 

This is a picture book that crosses all age gaps. The protagonist is a  blind boy, and although this is depicted, it is never mentioned. The pages contain, as well as great pictures, cutouts, tactile patches, and shapes, and there is braille on the cover.

I love this book not just for the quality of its production and content but for the fact that it is so suitable for reading to blind children who can gain extra insights by touch. The ending, where the pages of the book are flicked and ruffled and the resulting ‘wind’ can be felt on the face, is a master touch.

Most books about train journeys follow the same pattern – off goes the writer, describing destinations, meeting characters, learning about or interpreting the world. But here comes John Burningham from an entirely different angle, with a charming children’s book that uses the train to weave together a story about species survival. The characters are all endangered animals, attempting to board a little boy’s fantasy dream train as he chugs through different landscapes, playing with his pyjama-case dog. And what do you do when an elephant or a sea lion tries to get on? Well, no idea what Paul Theroux would do, but any right-thinking child joins in with bellowing “Oi, get off our train!” until we learn the reasons why we have to let them climb aboard.

Linda’s a graduate of the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I’ve taught since 2006. I love it when my reading mind seems to make a conversation out of the books I’ve read. For me, this novel seemed to be speaking to all the other books on this list—through the large, tender presence of the elephant, Queenie Grace, especially in the chapters written in her first-person voice; the growing affection between the child, Lily, and the elephant; the shifting family dynamics, so that blame and guilt give way to communication and empathy; all kinds of chains and ways to loosen them and be free. I even found a surprising little nugget of historical information in the author’s note.