THE WHITE ELEPHANT
by Sid Fleischman
Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins
ISBN-10: 0061131369
ISBN-13: 9780061131363
Ages 8-11
112 pages

Run-Run is a young elephant trainer who commands Walking Mountain, a huge, elderly elephant who is also his best friend. Their simple life together is good; they work hard each day, earning enough for their daily existence, and at night they sleep in the same hay.

At least they do until the day Sahib the Pest, the white elephant, is given to Run-Run when he angers Prince Noi the Idle. What is an elephant boy to do with a lazy elephant? If the elephant is put to work, the prince will punish him. Yet Run-Run cannot support both Sahib and his beloved Walking Mountain.

Sahib is an overgrown pampered pet, with no skills for work or protection. The curse of the sacred white elephant is that it cannot work, be yelled at, or eat mediocre food. Sahib is free to wander the countryside unrestricted; anyone forcing a white elephant to work would be punished.

Run-Run hopes that Sahib might want to run away and return to the prince. Instead, Sahib enjoys digging his polished ivory tusks into stumps and tossing them while working with Walking Mountain. It isn't until a tiger jumps on the back of Sahib that a strategy forms to solve the dilemma of caring for both elephants. Although sacred, Sahib is not as full of himself as a first impression would indicate.

The inspiration for this clever trickster story is an event that occurred centuries ago in Siam, before it was Thailand. In the author's notes we discover that a king angered by one of his advisers punished him with the gift of a white elephant. "Regarded as sacred, the royal beast was not allowed to work. Nevertheless, the white elephant must be fed its hundreds of pounds of fruit and fodder a day and otherwise cared for." This is the origin for the term "white elephant gift exchange" --- the gift of an unwanted burden was the gift of the white elephant.

Not all white elephants are unwanted, and perhaps not all gifts should be returned. Young readers will enjoy Run-Run's creative approach to the curse. Anyone who has a close relationship with another animal will understand Run-Run's solution and cheer the final decision.

   --- Reviewed by Patsy Side

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