Rating: 
Summary: A heart rending story....capable of bringing out so much....
Review: A heart rending story....capable of bringing out so much...., September 30, 2002
I read this book with my 9 year old daughter....and we both cried....tears dried up but the pain lingered....
Why, oh why, did these animals have to suffer so much, they had'nt wronged anyone, they were not at war with anyone, papa? They needed to be looked after by humans, who had bought them here against their will, and those humans decided their fate with death? Why could'nt they be let loose in a jungle? My daughter consulted an atlas, looked at the map of Japan and asked why could'nt the animals be taken to some remote part of the country which was less likely to be effected by war? Why was not the enemy told to stay away from the zoo which housed so many helpless and innocent animals, and for this the zoo could have been highlighted by placing lights or lighting fires all around it's boundary? Why did'nt mother nature come to their rescue? What must the animals have thought....their caretakers have become their killers....how betrayed and grief-stricken they must have felt? If the effects of war are so bad and sad, why is war not banned? I could feel her sadness....her turmoil...her helplessness. She was trying to find a way so that such things are not repeated, wars are stopped, and she came out with her own solution....she decided to type the whole story, word by word, and send it over email to all her friends and all email addresses that she could get hold of!! She also decided to set up a table beside her school gate, with this book on it, and request all visitors who came to attend the pet show being organised by her school on 4th Oct'02,which is the World Animal Welfare Day, to go through this book!
The questions she asked me were many....and many may have remained unasked in that young mind....I could feel her questioning justice, engaging her imagination and creativity to find alternative solutions, overflowing with compassion and empathy, maybe wondering about the indifference of mother nature, seeing the insanity and ravages of war, setting up of small but noble goals for herself....
This book conveys and wakens up more than just the futility and pain of war. Anti-war seeds have to be sown in an individual as she is the basic unit of society, changes there will ultimately change the society, and this has to be done at an early age. By what I saw in my daughter, the feelings this book evoked in her, I very very strongly recommend this book for everyone at every place. Ensure your presence as the child reads this book....she will have so many questions....and her innocent mind will be in a turmoil....she will need you beside her.
Rating:
Summary: A heart rending story....capable of bringing out so much....
Review: A heart rending story....capable of bringing out so much...., September 30, 2002
I read this book with my 9 year old daughter....and we both cried....tears dried up but the pain lingered....
Why, oh why, did these animals have to suffer so much, they had'nt wronged anyone, they were not at war with anyone, papa? They needed to be looked after by humans, who had bought them here against their will, and those humans decided their fate with death? Why could'nt they be let loose in a jungle? My daughter consulted an atlas, looked at the map of Japan and asked why could'nt the animals be taken to some remote part of the country which was less likely to be effected by war? Why was not the enemy told to stay away from the zoo which housed so many helpless and innocent animals, and for this the zoo could have been highlighted by placing lights or lighting fires all around it's boundary? Why did'nt mother nature come to their rescue? What must the animals have thought....their caretakers have become their killers....how betrayed and grief-stricken they must have felt? If the effects of war are so bad and sad, why is war not banned? I could feel her sadness....her turmoil...her helplessness. She was trying to find a way so that such things are not repeated, wars are stopped, and she came out with her own solution....she decided to type the whole story, word by word, and send it over email to all her friends and all email addresses that she could get hold of!! She also decided to set up a table beside her school gate, with this book on it, and request all visitors who came to attend the pet show being organised by her school on 4th Oct'02,which is the World Animal Welfare Day, to go through this book!
The questions she asked me were many....and many may have remained unasked in that young mind....I could feel her questioning justice, engaging her imagination and creativity to find alternative solutions, overflowing with compassion and empathy, maybe wondering about the indifference of mother nature, seeing the insanity and ravages of war, setting up of small but noble goals for herself....
This book conveys and wakens up more than just the futility and pain of war. Anti-war seeds have to be sown in an individual as she is the basic unit of society, changes there will ultimately change the society, and this has to be done at an early age. By what I saw in my daughter, the feelings this book evoked in her, I very very strongly recommend this book for everyone at every place. Ensure your presence as the child reads this book....she will have so many questions....and her innocent mind will be in a turmoil....she will need you beside her.
Rating: 
Summary: Faithful Elephants
Review: Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya, translated by Tomoko Tsuchiya Dykes and illustrated by Ted Lewin, is a very moving picture book story. It describes how during World War II three elephants at the Tokyo Zoo were euthanized by starvation, because of concerns that they might escape during an air raid and become dangerous. I plan to use the story with my 4th and 5th grade reading group as part of a unit about WWII, but one thing that troubles me about using such an emotional story, is that I do not understand where fact and fiction meet here. The subtitle reads "A True Story of Animals, People and War", and the introduction also describes it as a true story. I can't help wondering though why the animals had to be killed in such an inhumane way. Did the army forbid the use of an elephant gun because they did not want to "waste" ammunition? Aren't there ways to drug even animals as large as elephants? How do veterinarians treat elephants? And what happened at zoos in other parts of the world where there were air raid attacks, and similar risks that wild animals might escape and cause problems?
After writing this review two weeks ago, I discussed the book with other teachers in my school and decided that to use it with 4th and 5th graders would be committing a kind of emotional highjacking. We read a number of books together during our WWII unit and I plan to finish up with another zoo story - Hannah's Winter of Hope by Jean vna Leewen, which tells how the people of Budapest saved their hippo from starvation during the occupation.
Rating:
Summary: A book for people who against war
Review: First let me apology for my bad English. I notice that some of reviewers wonder that why the elephants are not killed by gun.
Actually it is the same question I had before.
I like this book so I checked the background of this story.
One reviewer in here wrote that gOther animals are killed by gunh.
Ifm afraid to say it is wrong information.
Mr. Saburo Fukuda, who was in charge of Ueno zoo, was commanded to eliminate all the beast of prey in the zoo IN SECRET by Japanese military. Therefore gun was not allowed to use because it would make gun shot noise. However gun was strictly forbidden for normal civilians anyway. The elephants were not only animal who were killed cruelly. Many animals didnft eat poisoned food, so some of them are killed by rope, by knife, by any means but not gun. I notice that some reviewer also says it is a propaganda to hide the cruelness of Japanese military.
I donft take that point. In my opinion, this story is strong censure against war and Japanese military itself. The cruel and unreasonable decision was maid by Japanese military and it is mentioned in this story. I agree that Japanese military did horrible things to many people and other countries, and this story is one of the examples of the cruelness. I strongly recommend any people who against war.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is HORRIBLE!! DO NOT BUY!!!
Review: I am a 21 year old college student, who was forced to listen to this story in my choldren's lit class (used to illustrate what we should NOT read to children in our future classrooms). This book graphically describes the slow, painful, torturous deaths of three innocent elephants at a Japanese zoo. Yes, it did really happen.. and yes, war is awful... but there is no need for this type of book to be purchased or read by ANYONE. My entire ADULT class sat through this horrible book not only crying but also wondering why if these zoo keepers loved their elephants so much why didn't they quickly end their suffering with a bullet? The book implies that American troops are the "enemy" which is the reason these poor creatures have to die. Great... inaccurate ... message to share!
Rating:
Summary: An appalling book for children
Review: I am a mother of three and a student in a teacher certification program. A young woman read this book out loud to the class to practice for what her mentor teacher wanted her to do for a third grade class. The older students (and mothers) in the class were appalled. This is NOT for children, especially young children unless you think they should know the physiological affects of starvation about elephants drawn out in slow, gruesome detail. Defenders of the book say that it purportedly wants to depict the horrors of war symbolized in the elephant keepers anguish over their elephants who may be killed by an unknown people dropping bombs over the city. Instead, this book is another depiction of Japanese as victims during WWII, which would be perfectly appropriate, if Japan had ever faced its own dark past as the people who participated in the Rape of Nanking, or the forced prostitution of Korean women, or the leaders of the Bataan Death March. This book is sadly another example of how Japan has not confronted its role as aggressor and conqueror in WWII. The Japanese are an industrious, talented people whose culture is ill-served by books such as these which put the blame on shadowy villians (implicitly American bombers) and instead, foist grusome nightmares on unsuspecting children.
Rating:
Summary: Sad but true
Review: I read this book with my 9 year old daughter....and we both cried....tears dried up but the pain lingered....
Why, oh why, did these animals have to suffer so much, they had'nt wronged anyone, they were not at war with anyone, papa? They needed to be looked after by humans, who had bought them here against their will, and those humans decided their fate with death? Why could'nt they be let loose in a jungle?
My daughter consulted an atlas, looked at the map of Japan and asked why could'nt the animals be taken to some remote part of the country which was less likely to be effected by war? Why was not the enemy told to stay away from the zoo which housed so many helpless and innocent animals, and for this the zoo could have been highlighted by placing lights or lighting fires all around it's boundary? Why did'nt mother nature come to their rescue? What must the animals have thought....their caretakers have become their killers....how betrayed and grief-stricken they must have felt? If the effects of war are so bad and sad, why is war not banned? I could feel her sadness....her turmoil...her helplessness. She was trying to find a way so that such things are not repeated, wars are stopped, and she came out with her own solution....she decided to type the whole story, word by word, and send it over email to all her friends and all email addresses that she could get hold of!! She also decided to set up a table beside her school gate, with this book on it, and request all visitors who came to attend the pet show being organised by her school on 4th Oct'02,which is the World Animal Welfare Day, to go through this book!
The questions she asked me were many....and many may have remained unasked in that young mind....I could feel her questioning justice, engaging her imagination and creativity to find alternative solutions, overflowing with compassion and empathy, maybe wondering about the indifference of mother nature, seeing the insanity and ravages of war, setting up of small but noble goals for herself....
This book conveys and wakens up more than just the futility and pain of war. Anti-war seeds have to be sown in an individual as she is the basic unit of society, changes there will ultimately change the society, and this has to be done at an early age. By what I saw in my daughter, the feelings this book evoked in her, I very very strongly recommend this book for everyone at every place. Ensure your presence as the child reads this book, she will have so many questions....her innocent mind will be in turmoil....she'll need your presence.
Rating:
Summary: A difference between the Japanese and English versions
Review: I've read this book in English and recently in Japanese with the help of a Japanese friend. The Japanese version I read was the same story, but written and illustrated by different people (a man named Mamoru Tanabe was the author of the version I read). At any rate, the Japanese version made mention of something that I don't think is included in this English translation. The official reason from Tokyo for killing the elephants was that in the event that Tokyo was bombed, the cages could be destroyed and the animals might be let loose upon the city. But the book also says that although that was the official reason, the underlying reason that government officials probably had in mind was to show the people of Japan that in this war, they would have to be ready to sacrifice anything for their country. If it was necessary, the lives of animals or even other people would have to be given up for the good of Japan. A previous reviewer mentioned the same thing, but as far as I remember the English version of the story doesn't address that idea at all. So for all those people wondering why the elephants had to die in such a cruel way, there's your answer: to show the Japanese people the true horrors of war, and make them feel ready to sacrifice anything in order to bring that war to an end.
Rating:
Summary: A difference between the Japanese and English versions
Review: I've read this book in English and recently in Japanese with the help of a Japanese friend. The Japanese version I read was the same story, but written and illustrated by different people (a man named Mamoru Tanabe was the author of the version I read). At any rate, the Japanese version made mention of something that I don't think is included in this English translation. The official reason from Tokyo for killing the elephants was that in the event that Tokyo was bombed, the cages could be destroyed and the animals might be let loose upon the city. But the book also says that although that was the official reason, the underlying reason that government officials probably had in mind was to show the people of Japan that in this war, they would have to be ready to sacrifice anything for their country. If it was necessary, the lives of animals or even other people would have to be given up for the good of Japan. A previous reviewer mentioned the same thing, but as far as I remember the English version of the story doesn't address that idea at all. So for all those people wondering why the elephants had to die in such a cruel way, there's your answer: to show the Japanese people the true horrors of war, and make them feel ready to sacrifice anything in order to bring that war to an end.
Rating:
Summary: ONE SAD BOOK!
Review: My 8th grade English teacher bet us that we couldnt read this book to someone else without sheading a tear. It was true. Do NOT judge it by the size and cover please!..ONE GREAT BOOK OF ANOTHER SIDE OF THE HORRORS OF WAR!!!!
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