Lorelei's rating: 5 stars!
What a gem, what a gem! My neighbor happened to be at the library with us and happened to be standing next to the "M" section. She knows of my crazy quest for great books and pulled out this one. It is one of her go-to gift books for a newborn, and I know why. (In the picture, Lorelei follows the words with her fingers as she reads it in her pajamas while we're at the beach.)Elmer is a patchwork elephant in a herd of regular, plain-old "elephant-color" elephants. The other elephants love him for his uniqueness, but he sees himself as odd and different. Which of course he is. So he tries to make himself just like everyone else, and therefore takes away all his uniquness and coolness. And as soon as he realizes what he's done, he plays the best joke of his life on the rest of the herd.
Ben's favorite animal is definitely an elephant right now; he practices how to trumpet like an elephant all day long, and often calms himself before going to sleep by blowing through his lips in his one elephant way again and again and again and again until he's asleep. So he especially appreciates all the elephants in the book; several pages are just big pictures of a herd of elephants, to show how different Elmer the patchwork elephant is.
As of today (late March 2010) I think this is my favorite book of all!
Have you read Elmer in the Snow yet? We read Elmer in the Snow in every season and take it with us on vacations--we've read it in Seattle, the Outer Banks, Hawaii, Kansas, it's great for every occasion.
ReplyDeleteI'll check it out! Literally. We read two more Elmer books...Elmer and the Lost Teddy and Elmer Takes Off (or something like that). Thanks for my very first comment. I owe you a latte.
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