Run, Elephant, Run

This beautiful picture book is subtitled An Indonesian Rainforest Adventure and, while the story itself is slight, a baby elephant runs through the storm-lashed rainforest to escape a pursuing tiger and find safety with its mother and herd, the book as a whole has great visual impact.  The storm begins gradually and its power builds through each double page spread as plants and creatures bend, twist, sway and run to escape it.  The text is minimal but very effective, full of onomatopoeia to enhance the read-aloud experience and with a clever use of font and shape to convey the sound effects.  The coloured-pencil illustrations are stunning, full of shape, colour tones, lines and movement, giving a real feel of the verdant, wildlife-filled rainforest.  The final double page spread depicts 35 tropical rainforest creatures to spot, a perfect incentive for eager readers to go back and search again.

All in all, this simple-seeming picture book has a great deal to offer, an appealing animal character, a story in which the sense of danger resolves happily, a clever use of text and style to increase language development, an introduction to a beautiful and threatened habitat with endangered wildlife and an opportunity to explore, learn and look closely via compelling illustrations.