Faithful Elephants

Rating:
Summary: A heart rending story....capable of bringing out so much....
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.

Rating:
Summary: Good or bad
Review: The first time I read this was when I started studying Japan.This book tells about possible things that could happen in matters of war.I read this book almost every day.Although it's sad I can finnish the book.But I can never finish the book without tears in my eyes.