“How To Be An Elephant: Growing Up in the African Wild,” by Katherine Roy, author and illustrator.
Roaring Brook Press, New York, 2017, 48 pages, Grades 2-4.
Families are the basic structure of any society. Within families, the younger members are protected, educated and given the necessities of life. Since they are young and vulnerable, the older family members guide their lives through helpful learning experiences.
What is true of human families is also true of elephant families. Since elephants are so large and take so long to mature, they live in family groups that provide protection. Years of experience are necessary for the leaders of the elephant family to learn all that is necessary to guide the group. Katherine Roy has written a fascinating account of this process by studying families of elephants in Kenya. The name of this interesting book is “How To Be An Elephant.”
After 22 months of growing in the womb, the baby elephants are born. Though weighing 220 lbs., they are fragile animals. Within one hour they stagger to their feet and begin nursing. Mother elephants carefully watch over the youngsters and are very protective.
Living in family groups, elephants travel together over hundreds of miles to find food, water and shade from the hot equatorial sun. All the time, the baby elephants have to continually learn.
The male elephants, or bulls, leave the family groups when they reach adolescence. But the baby elephants and female elephants stay together. This usually means that the most learned elephants in the family are the oldest female elephants.
Roy details how elephants use various parts of their bodies, starting with their trunks. Elephants have poor vision but acute senses of smell. Their large trunks contain thousands of cells used for scenting. As a result, elephant babies learn many important life lessons through scent. They can tell the identities of various elephants in the family by their smell. As well, they learn where to find food and water through this sense.
While the baby elephants at first drink water through their mouths, they soon learn how to scoop up water with their trunk. Then they place the end of the trunk in their mouths and drink the water. This is important because adult elephants drink 20 to 40 gallons of water each day. As the elephants continue on their journey across the African plains, they encounter many dangers and challenges. What are they?
Katherine Roy has written a poignant book about elephants and the necessity of strong family groups to ensure their survival. Roy indirectly points out the corresponding lesson for people to learn about our need for family life from this fascinating animal group.
The pictures in the book are joyful, playful and at times serious. The author/illustrator draws baby elephants playing in rivers while their mothers cautiously survey their surroundings. We see the mother elephants charging predators threatening their young. While the bull elephants can weigh more than 13,000 lbs., the female elephants sometimes weigh more than 7,000 pounds. They also have tusks and can be fearsome when attacking predators.
The author concludes the book with a page of information about the state of African elephants. Their range is diminishing as cities grow and people try to escape poverty. Additionally, their valuable ivory tusks tempt poachers to hunt elephants illegally.
In spite of these issues, elephants have, curiously enough, begun making money for African countries through legitimate photographic safaris. It is all a race against time.
This book is a popular and fascinating account of the life of elephants. I encourage you to check it out of the library and share it with your family. It is well worth the time.
