The Elephant Wish

By Lou Berger and Ana Juan

I was very curious about this book because our teacher has a blog post about it and the picture of it intrigued me. I wanted to find out for myself what it was all about. It didn't surprise me that it was a fabulous book! I found out after reading this book that my favorite children's literature genre is fantasy. I loved how the main character is not as skinny as a twig, and that her parents are a little crazy and occupied with their own personal lives. I think that I expected to see a mother and a father who loving took care of their child, but that was not the case. This little girl made a wish to be taken away by elephants, in my opinion, because she felt alone and depressed. It made me feel blessed that my parents were always so involved in my life. But I could also relate feeling alone because I was very shy (and am still trying to come out of my shell more) and did not have very many friends growing up. I also just enjoyed reading this book because the words Berger chose were very fun to say, like Prattlebottom. Not to mention the illustrations! At first glance, I thought there was smoke behind the little girl, then saw the elephant, and made the connection that she was blowing out candles from a birthday cake and the smoke took the shape of what her wish was. I could have probably looked through the book for hours finding tiny details that Juan incorporated into the book. It was interesting to see how the parents felt remorseful and found out that they needed to change in order to show their daughter that they loved and cared for her. My favorite page was when the whole jungle was still--I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I came to that page! Overall, I think that everyone should take the time to read this book, it's very interesting!