THAI, KAO AND TONE: An Elephant Story

This book, manages to make elephants, a naturally appealing subject for children, seem dull and unattractive. Although the short story is about the playfulness of young elephants, it plods along with pachydermous weightiness, as it describes how three baby elephants in Thailand, tired with their games while their elders worked for lumberers, would go off to steal bananas, until once they were almost attacked by a tiger. The gray and green pencil drawings, more like doodles than finished pictures, are disappointing from this illustrator. The elephants, flat, boneless, limpid eyed, and sometimes misshapen, are very poorly rendered.