I am not sure I understand this entire story, but the paintings are amazing.

I love the illustrations, but the story itself didn't hold my attention. Just a nitpicky thing, but the font was way too small too.

This one was okay-not great, but okay.

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Not quite as bizarre as an acid trip (I'm assuming here), but still felt like pharmaceuticals were involved in the making of this book.

Bizarre story about a young girl named Eliza Prattlebottom who makes a wish for an elephant to come and take her away. The illustrations were the best part of the book, very surreal and dreamlike. C. 2008, genre-fantasy

"birthday wish, elephant, time, aging, very psychedelic in a pastel kind of way"

Surreal is a good word to describe this story of a girl who on her eighth birthday wishes for an elephant to come and take her away from her life. When she gets her wish and doesn't come back her parents miss her and dream of her walking with the elephants, until an old woman, Miss Adelle, finds her and convinces her to go home. The story is poetic and lovely in a rather bizarre way. I love the illustrations by Ana Juan.

The tale of a child and her birthday dream. While the story feels novel and Beautiful illustrations are compelling, these positives don’t outweigh the wordy text.

In this surreal story, Eliza Prattlebottom makes a wish at her eighth birthday party that an elephant will come and take her away. Eliza's wish comes true and Cousin Floyd, a very large elephant, carries her away to live with the elephants in the jungle. Cousin Floyd is only noticed by 97-year-old Adele who has perfect posture and once as a girl herself knew Cousin Floyd. Eliza's family mourns her being gone, thinking of their daughter often. Adele decides that she needs to return to the elephants herself and heads off to the jungle to demand that Eliza return home and she herself be watched over by Cousin Floyd. This book captures the desire to remain a child forever.

Berger's language is a joy to read aloud, curving and moving as it is read. It is filled with small gems of prose that evoke further depth in the text. Here is one of my favorite passages:

Now, you might think that a ninety-seven-year-old woman pulling a wagon with a two-hundred-year-old dog in it would move very slowly. But Adelle was moving at the speed of memory.

Berger captures the magical and fantastical elements of childhood and imagination beautifully in his text. At the same time, Juan's illustrations perfectly embody that same feeling of myth, strangeness, and dream. Her pictures are often surrounded by the thoughts of the characters being depicted, adding an even further dream-like quality to them.

This rather quirky and unusual picture book makes a great read aloud to older elementary students who may themselves be struggling with leaving childhood behind and the larger implications of growing up. Appropriate for ages 6-9.