posted on 28 Feb 2017

The Memory of an Elephant: An unforgettable journey by Sophie Strady illustrated by Jean- Francois Martin

Originally published in France in 2012 this clever book didn’t get an English translation until 2014 in an American edition. How, you might ask yourself, can a children’s picture story be blended with a non-fiction, educational book and retain all its readability and charm? Well The Memory of an Elephant is almost the perfect template for such an enterprise.

Marcel the elderly elephant has led an interesting life and in his old age he is remembering the different things he has learned in all these diverse encounters, jobs and locations. He is now dedicating himself to downloading all these memories into a single encyclopaedia when one day he discovers a huge number of odd-shaped parcels have been delivered to him. Unwrapping them he finds an item that triggers a specific memory of his past.

Alongside this story told in fabulous large folio colour illustrations are pages of information, initially about Marcel and elephants in general and then his adventures. So we get lots of factual information about food, clothes, life at sea, musical instruments, plants and birds, modern design furniture and more.

It’s a brilliant idea to interlace this factual information into the story of Marcel’s adventurous life – a sort of Trojan horse for educational material that Sophie Strady artfully weaves into the traditional children’s storybook format.

But, as is often the case with these books, it is the quality of the illustration that makes or breaks the impact. Jean-Francois Martin has done a really fabulous job here and the illustrations are genuinely delightful. Martin is part of a collective of graphic artists known as  ‘2 oeufs baconp’tites patates’ and he is the winner of two major awards – the Bologna Ragazzi Award and Grand Prix of Illustration from Moulins Museum of  Illustrations for Youth.

It was a great decision to publish this book in large format folio because it gives the book an almost coffee-table presence. Martin has also gone for a rather vintage style of illustration that makes the book feel much older than it is. Clearly plenty of thought has been put into this production and it pays off.

Second hand copies can be found for well under £10 on line so getting hold of a copy wont break the bank.

Terry Potter

February 2017