The Elephant and the Sea
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
One growing elephant. One smallish lifeboat. One BIG dream . . .
From the award-winning author-illustrator Ed Vere comes a lyrical tale celebrating bravery and quiet determination.
In a village by the sea, carved into the rockiest edge of land, where the waves are wild and tumbling lives an old elephant. Once he was a young elephant – with a dream of joining the lifeboat crew. But elephants don’t fit in lifeboats.
Gabriel is determined, and he is ingenious, and he is brave. So much so that one stormy day he might be the only one who can save the day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This affectionately swashbuckling work by Vere (The Artist) doesn't start out sounding like a heroic tale as Gabriel, an elderly elephant ("His knees crack. His back creaks") looks out over the harbor of a small fishing village, remembering. As a young elephant, Gabriel is smitten with the lifeboat and the animal crew that rows it. "Heave away, haul away, heave-HO!" they sing, and he longs to go with them. "Come back when you're older," they say. But when he's fully grown, he dwarfs their boat ("Heave-ho. Oh no"). Gabriel is determined: "There is only one thing I want to do.... So I will do it!" He collects driftwood, builds a lifeboat of his own, and when disaster strikes, he's ready. In Vere's spreads, Gabriel and other scratchy-lined animal characters have the look of friendly animation; by contrast, sea scenes drawn with charged ink lines pulse with energy against stormy gray backdrops. It's not a tale of injustice redressed: Gabriel is so gentle, and the lifeboat crew so grateful, that only joy lingers as the elephant finds a way to do what he loves, and comes away with marvelous stories to tell. Ages 3–7.
