Review By CAROLYN M. MULLIN

Ivory isn’t always an easy subject to broach with children, but author Juanita Havill, in retelling the true story of a Japanese carver, does so beautifully and eloquently.

Sato was trained by his father, a master ivory carver who died while Sato was still a young boy, and was infatuated with the material and the secrets of how to work with ivory in producing traditional figurines called netsuke. As ivory became scarcer on the market, Sato becomes overly excited by a rare, beautiful piece “the size of his two fists, and creamy as foam on the sea.” He throws all of his energy and time into this piece which promises to be his masterwork, but when he stumbles across a flaw “hope drained from his heart.” The flaw turns out to be a bullet.

“A cry filled his mind, eerie and strange, like the trumpeting of elephants mourning their dead. Elephants who had died so that Sato might have ivory to carve…Sato set his tools down. He bent his head before the unfinished figure, covered his face with his hands, and wept.”

Haville creatively employs a dreamlike sequence in which Sato confronts a herd of elephants, the faces behind his default choice of carving material. When he awakes, Sato pledges to work with a different material, marble.

Sato and the Elephants is such a unique approach to the subject of ivory and the black market trade. It not only challenges cultural traditions in light of endangered species issues (something we’re facing here in California with the proposed ban on shark fins for Chinese soup), but shows us that there are viable alternatives to exploitive practices no matter what industry you’re in.

Ages 4-8.

Review By JENNIFER GANNETT

I Heard It From Alice Zucchini: Poems About the Garden spans the course of all four seasons. The poems are narrated by various garden denizens at different places and times in their growing grounds, and the book offers the opportunity to contemplate gardening from a perspective other than that of a human gardener. One of our favorite poems was the first one, entitled “When I Grow Up,” in which we listen in on the chatter of seeds as they envision what lies ahead– especially enjoyable because at the time we were sprouting our own seeds for our small garden.  Cinderella fans will enjoy a poetic retelling of an aspect of the fairy tale in this volume.

The enjoyable illustrations round out the short poetry pieces and feature an expressive little fairy in each one.  I recommend this book for ages 4 and up.