posted on 13 Nov 2016

The Elephant Wish by Lou Berger illustrated by Ana Juan

I’m an absolute sucker for big, bold children’s books where the author and the illustrator are gleefully in cahoots to produce a story that’s full of outrageously anarchic ideas but with a useful solid message underneath the seeming mayhem.

The author of The Elephant Wish is Lou Berger, the head script writer of Sesame Street and so he clearly knows plenty about the child’s delight in anarchy and the surreal. His ideas are picked up and turned into a series of glorious drawings by Ana Juan who has illustrated a number of children’s books as well as providing cover art for The New Yorker.

Eliza Prattlebottom has reached her eighth birthday and at her party she makes her birthday wish. What could it be? Her one-eyed father and her opera-singing mother think they might know. But they don’t. Eliza is tired of being ignored by her parents who she thinks are more interested in their careers than in her and so what she has wished for is an elephant.

When the elephant turns up and takes Eliza away her parents are distraught – what will become of her and of them? But fortunately for them there is someone in the street who knows what’s going on – Adelle who is ninety seven years old and has a dog called Potato who is two hundred years old and travels everywhere in a trolley.

When Adelle was a young girl she too wished for an elephant to come and she too went away with it and knows his name – which is Cousin Floyd. She decides to help and  sets off to the jungle in search of the elephant who is easily recognised by his black floppy hat.

Adelle convinces Eliza she should return and that she would regret not growing up like a normal little girl and having all the experiences that she might expect to have. So reluctantly Eliza  goes back to her parents who resolve to spend more time with her and she is now a changed girl – she has knowledge and understanding and will grow to have an exciting real life.

The story is delightfully odd but the messages are clear enough. It’s a book about growing up, how children see adults and how imagination can provide an important space in which children can escape the frustrations of the adult world.

The book was published by Schwartz and Wade in 2008 and to get a relatively cheap copy you’ll have to order it from the USA. Copies in this country tend to be more expensive and you might have to pay up to £15 for a nice edition.

 

Terry Potter

November 2016