MAMMOTH AND ME

Can a boy find a place for his new best friend, a misfit mammoth?

One night, there's a knock at the door, and the little narrator, very small in striped pajamas, opens it to find… Mammoth! Mammoth is baby blue with pink inner ears and "as big as the biggest truck and hairier than a yak." Also, he looks hungry; the boy feeds him fish sticks and peas right from the freezer (Mammoth is too big to fit through the door). Things go downhill from there. While taking a nap in the garden, the mammoth flattens Dad's shed; at the park he crushes the swing; and he empties the swimming pool with a single dive. He even has an "accident" all over a car; the driver declares, "This town is no place for a mammoth!" What to do? Just when things seem hopeless, the boy sees a broken-down bus in the distance, full of stranded children and a distraught driver. Mammoth has a great idea; he carries everyone home. Now everyone wants to be his friend. And Dad says Mammoth can live with them after all. Hall's prose captures the wide-eyed simplicity of the very young, and his illustrations, using watercolor paints, pencil, and graphite stick, seem both warmed and washed with whimsy.

A simple, engaging tale, with a subtle lesson.