Elephant Crossing

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this sequel to Young Lions , Yoshida returns to East Africa to observe a herd of elephants crossing the parched plain. When the herd encounters prowling lions and frightened zebras, great-grandmother elephant charges to protect the younger ones. When she herself was small, her family group was forced to flee a mob of omnivorous desert grasshoppers. The elephants resettled in the lush, peaceful forest where they continue to dwell. The sketchy plot line places this book in the nether regions between fiction and nonfiction. Yoshida's illustrations are stunning and varied; his use of color pencil on textured paper replicates the skin of an elephant, the motions of grasshoppers and the shimmering heat on the plain. A vertical double-page spread of the elephant charging the retreating lions is awe-inspiring, suggesting thundering feet and billowing dust clouds. Whether read as fact or fiction, this natural history book is quite appealing. Ages 3-8. (Sept.)

School Library Journal

Gr 1-3-- Perhaps if someday all of the endangered African elephants are lost to ivory poachers, then this beautiful nonfiction picture book may serve as a reminder of the huge, dignified, social creatures which were lost. As a matriarchal group is on its way to a forest in search of tender leaves to eat, three young lions stalk them. After the great-grandmother charges and frightens them off, she recalls a day from her past when an all-engulfing swarm of desert grasshoppers swept over the herd. Powerless against them, all of the animals fled in a mad frenzy, even the cattle egrets which usually ate grasshoppers. Yoshida's beautiful color illustrations evoke the grandeur of the African landscape, the swarming of the grasshoppers, and the panicked charge of the fleeing elephants. Their long, hungry trek across the brown, bare plain is finally relieved by the deep green and purple refuge of the leafy forest. The colors vary throughout the story and delight the senses at every turn of the page. --Frances E. Millhouser, Reston Regional Library, VA