Polacco provides an interesting twist on the imaginary friend theme in this cheerful story inspired by her own childhood. The plot describes the close friendship between a little girl in a red-flowered dress and a huge, friendly elephant who does everything little girls do. The first-person narrator describes Emma Kate as her best friend, and the reader naturally assumes all along that Emma Kate is the elephant character and that she must be a figment of the girl’s imagination. But the final spread shows a pair of elephant parents tucking their elephant child into a bed covered with a quilt in the same red print. The reader realizes in this surprising dénouement that the elephant child has been narrating all along, and Emma Kate, the imaginary friend, is really the little girl. Polacco uses a limited palette of gray and red to fine effect for her illustrations, and her elephant is almost as appealing as Dr. Seuss’s Horton, to whom the story is dedicated. (Picture book. 3-6)
