Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People and War

by Yukio Tsuchiya, Tomoko Tsuchiya Dykes (Translator), Ted Lewin (Illustrator)

Overview

This beautifully illustrated children’s book offers a sobering lesson about the horrors of war through the lens of a Japanese zoo during WWII.
 
At Tokyo’s famous Ueno Zoo, a zookeeper recounts the story of three performing elephants—John, Tonky, and Wanly—who became casualties of the Second World War. As bombs fell nightly on the city, the zoo was in danger of destruction. In the interest of public safety, instructions were given to kill the potentially dangerous animals. Still, the elephant’s keepers wept and prayed that the war would end so that their beloved elephants might be saved.
 
Originally published in Japan in 1951, this heartbreaking historical tale is now available in English with beautiful watercolor illustrations by Ted Lewin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544575899
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	12/15/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	331,391
Lexile:	AD730L (what's this?)
File size:	39 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 Months to 11 Years

About the Author

Ted Lewin grew up in Buffalo, New York, with two brothers, one sister, two parents, a lion, an iguana, and a chimpanzee. He became interested in art as a young boy when he would draw his brothers' world of wrestling. Ted later worked as a professional wrestler to finance his studies at the Pratt Institute of Fine Arts, where he met his wife, Betsy Lewin, also a children's book writer and illustrator. He and his wife travel around the world to research the settings for their books. While working on SACRED RIVER, which he both wrote and illustrated, Ted joined thousands of Hindus on their pilgrimage to the banks of the Ganges River in Benares, India. Ted now lives and works in the brownstone he shares with his wife and their two cats in Brooklyn, New York. For more information visit www.tedlewin.com.

Editorial Reviews

A zookeeper narrates the story of how there came to be graves at the zoo: when Tokyo was showered with bombs during the bleak days of World War II, the authorities feared that if the zoo were destroyed, the animals might accidentally be freed and wreak havoc on the city. So they decided that all the zoo animals would be killed. But the elephants wouldn't eat the poisonous food they were offered, and the needles in the syringes containing poison broke before they could penetrate the elephants' rough skin. So the elephants were starved to death, a slow and painful process watched by the zookeepers who loved them. An upsetting story for children or adults, this powerfully conveys the deadly side effects of war. Lewin's watercolors show the massive gray bodies in their state of decline; it is impossible not to appreciate the heartbreak of the animals' plight. But this is a book that provokes questions about the nature of death and dying (children may read into this that some may be killed for the greater good of all), and so should be chosen with care. All ages. (August)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 3-8 In an unnamed war, Tokyo was being bombed ``day and night.'' The Army commands that the dangerous animals in the Tokyo Zoo be poisoned so that they might not escape in the event of a direct hit (witness a double-page spread of a dead tiger, a bear, a lion, and a large snake). When it is the elephant's turn to die, he refuses to eat food which has been poisoned and his skin is too thick to take an injection of poison, so the decision is made to starve him to death. Two more elephants must follow, and the real tension produced in the story is the pathos surrounding the torturously slow death of these big pets by depriving them of all food and water. No punches are pulled: these dying elephants use some of their last strength to perform a trick for which they have been customarily rewarded with food and water. They die, horribly, and are mourned by the zookeepers who ``raised their fists to the sky and implored `Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop all wars!' '' Lewin's lustrous watercolors soften the hard edges of the story: his backgrounds appear as if washed with tears. This is an odd choice for a children's book. Indeed, the High Moral Purpose here must be interpreted as having more to do with the heartlessness of the zoo keepers than the cruelty of war. Yet, to follow logically, it would seem spurious for a writer to suggest that children ``realize the human ideal'' so that elephants will never go hungry again. And it is also somehow churlish to implicate children in the stupidities of adults. No amount of rhetorical conceit will make Faithful Elephants any more than a book which demonstrates an immoral cruelty to animals. Christina L. Olson, Beverly Hills Public Library

School Library Journal

"A moving and powerful statement about the insanity of war." Horn Book

"A moving and powerful statement about the insanity of war." Horn Book Guide

From the Publisher