Applegate deftly tempers themes of grief and loss with compassion and humor as Ruby finds her place in the herd. Goofy, playful, and mischievous Ruby is fully dimensional, as she has shown her bravery during the many hardships of her young life. An elephant glossary and Castelao’s charming, illustrated guide to elephant body language help immerse readers in Ruby’s world.

The unexpected arrival of someone from Ruby’s past life on the savanna revives memories both warmly nostalgic and deeply traumatic. Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia. Luckily, she can confide in her Uncle Ivan, who is next door in Gorilla World, and Uncle Bob, the dog who lives nearby with human friend Julia. She’s apprehensive about her Tuskday, a rite of passage for young elephants when she’ll give a speech in front of the rest of the herd. In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary. On Sunday, White Mouse (the only female) runs over the entire elephant, getting the others to join her now, at last, with her help, they all understand the whole.Įxquisitely crafted: a simple, gracefully honed text, an appealing story, real but unobtrusive values and levels of meaning, and outstanding illustrations and design-all add up to a perfect book. The real elephant is skillfully composed with textured and crumpled paper in gentle earth tones in a sly philosophical twist, the form each mouse imagines is the color of the mouse: e.g., Green Mouse says the trunk is a snake, shown as green. The mice (first seen as an intriguing row of bright tails on the elegantly spare black title spread) are the colors of the rainbow plus white they, the white text, and the parts of the elephant (as they really are and as the mice imagine them) are superimposed on a dramatic black ground.

A many-talented illustrator (Lon Po Po, 1989, Caldecott Medal) uses a new medium-collage-in an innovative reworking of 'The Blind Men and the Elephant,' with splendid results: a book that casually rehearses the days of the week, numbers (ordinal and cardinal), and colors while memorably explicating and extending the theme: 'Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole.'

Seven blind mice book