Book Review: The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Peter Augustus Duchene wants to know if his sister lives. "She lives... an elephant will lead you there," a fortuneteller says, and the boy is not sure whether to hope, to believe differently than what he has been told all his life. In another part of the city, a magician summons an elephant instead of a bouquet of lilies for a noblewoman, and the lives of the boy, the magician, the noblewoman, and some others are forever changed.

I read this book for a paper I wrote on the author, and read it for a second time last night. Like most of DiCamillo's other books, it is sad and beautiful, full of simple and insightful truths about the world and about life, extremely quotable and a bit difficult to properly blurb without giving away the ending. I liked this book very much, although not as much as The Tale of Despereaux or The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, two of my all-time favorites. Everything ended as it should, but my one complaint is that all the fuss was unnecessary: **SPOILER** if they had just thought to ask the midwife where she took Adele, then they could have found her right away. There was not even a proper reason given for not doing so; the midwife wasn't dead or missing, she was just entirely forgotten about except for the fact she took the baby away. Even if they had lost contact with her, any policeman worth his salt would have gotten the idea of looking in all the city's orphanages until a girl whose name and general age was known would be found. The elephant, I am sorry to say, wasn't necessary. The story would have been way less interesting, but it hurt my heart to read of what happened to the elephant and to the poor woman she landed on, and I feel I would have rather they not gone through that and the policeman just think of the practical way of finding a missing child. But then I am not the storyteller, and I suppose the magician and the beggar's dog and the ex-stonecutter wouldn't have gotten to do their heart's desires. So there's that. **END SPOILER**

I would recommend this book and would give it an A-, perhaps. I'm bad at grading books.