Elephants of Africa

K-Gr 2—The sound of trumpeting trunks announces Gail Gibbons's book (Holiday House, 2008) about African elephants. Replete with fascinating facts and authentic sound effects to illustrate elephants breathing, smelling, drinking, communicating, showering, and other daily tasks, the book will amaze children with its details and diagrams. Elephants are described as social animals who are happiest in matriarchal family groups. Females live separate from males, although everyone in a herd protects the calves. Walter Dixon narrates with clarity, reading the informational paragraph first, then the picture captions from top to bottom on each page. Students will find this audiobook ideal for reports or browsing, and will come away with some mind-boggling numbers: "Elephants eat about 300 lbs. (136 kilograms) of food in a day. The female elephant, or cow, gives birth 22 months after mating. Ninety-nine percent of baby elephants are born at night." Page-turn signals are optional. This will be a popular resource for fact-hungry primary grade children.—Lonna Pierce, MacArthur Elementary School, Binghamton, NY