The Elephant: Entertaining and Educational
The Elephant by Peter Carnavas is a primary school age children’s book that discusses themes of depression, anxiety and grief. The story follows a young girl, Olive, her dad and her grandad’s experiences surrounding the loss of Olive’s mother.
Olive’s father’s sadness is so heavy on him that Olive imagines it as a big grey elephant following him around everywhere. Every day, Olive wishes it would go away.
She attempts to chase the elephant away and make her father happy again, but nothing works. In doing this, she sets out on a mission to make her dad happy again, all with the help of her granddad and best friend, Arthur.
Throughout the book, other characters including Olive’s grandad experience the feelings represented by a big, slow, grey animal. She learns about why these close people in her life are experiencing sadness and how it can happen to everyone, even herself.
I loved this book, not only is it an excellent and entertaining children’s book, but it is also a helpful teaching tool in educating children about ‘big feelings’ such as depression and grief that they may have difficulties in understanding.
For children, the book could be used to help understand these emotions in a simplistic way, but also to remind them that there is hope when you or someone else in your life is feeling sad or down. I believe it could be an excellent tool in teaching children about important yet difficult feelings that they may experience throughout their lives.
Not only is this book a great read for children, but it also pulls at the heart strings of adults. The story unravels how children and adults can both experience these big emotions.
The illustrations also produced by Peter Carnavas used throughout the book were minimal but fantastic.
Every few pages, there is a quirky illustration to compliment the story. The illustrations which are black and white, besides the front cover, portray the sadness of the characters, as well as the heaviness of the elephant and other ‘grey’ creatures. The illustrations also help the reader picture how large these emotions are in comparison to the characters.
There wasn’t much to dislike about this book. The only thing I can fault is the somewhat false sense of hope at the end of the story. Olive chases her dad and grandad’s large grey animals away, and everything is back to normal, or how it was before the animals showed up.
Although it is a lovely ending to the story, children could take a literal approach to thinking feelings of depression, anxiety and grief can just go away and never come back just like that. This false sense of hope can be damaging to a young person.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and believe it can be a valuable teaching tool, for children to learn about big and difficult to discuss emotions.
I would recommend this book for ages 7+.
If you or your child are struggling with mental health, please reach out to a healthcare professional or mental health service such as Headspace, Lifeline or Kids Helpline. There is always someone willing to listen.
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