One Amazing Elephant by Linda Oatman High (review)

The occasional arrival of Lily’s grandparents’ traveling circus in her West Virginia town always brings mixed feelings for Lily. She loves Grandma and Grandpa, but she’s not particularly pleased to see her estranged mother, who returned to the circus when Lily was three, and Queenie Grace, her grandfather’s beloved elephant, frightens shy Lily. When Grandpa Bill dies, though, Lily heads to the small Floridian town where the circus camps out in the winter. It’s a strange place with an old lion wandering the roads, fire-breathing routines practiced out on the lawn, and trapeze classes offered daily. Alligator Boy, aka Henry Jack, a kid with a peculiar condition, is around Lily’s age, so the two pal around, and Henry Jack even gets Lily to reconsider her opinion about Queenie Grace. Soon, however, the bond she’s forming with the elephant is threatened when other members of the circus want to sell Queenie. Lily’s not the most likable protagonist and her transformation from petulance to wisdom is as sudden and forced as her reconciliation with her mother, whose abandonment is explained away by a not-at-all nuanced reason of mental illness. It’s Queenie Grace’s narration, which alternates with Lily’s, that steals the show, with a simplicity that conveys the utter rawness of grief (over Bill’s death), love, and joy. The scene in which the elephant, relocated to a sanctuary, discovers the offspring that was taken away from her years earlier is an absolute tearjerker. The big-hearted elephant will easily find a place next to Ivan (from Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan, BCCB 2/12) in the hearts of animal-loving readers.