When Elephant Met Giraffe

November 25, 2013
This collection of three stories about a pair of friends with contrasting personalities is based on a series of online comics by newcomer Gude. He draws his elephant and giraffe costars with heavy black lines and presents their stories in the manner of a puppet show, with a backdrop of blue sky, anonymous greenery, and the occasional cloud. The brassy elephant wears her floaty toy to the water hole. “Can I swim, too?” she asks the giraffe, who’s already in the water, but her overture falls flat as the giraffe stares back silently. She stalks off, hurt, but spends the night researching her mysterious acquaintance and discovers that the giraffe’s silence is a species trait. “I read somewhere you don’t make much noise,” she says the next day. “So you don’t need to say anything.” It’s a believable, even touching mix of condescension and affection. The other two stories—a pretzel-making disaster and a game of pretend—don’t work quite as well, as the giraffe’s silent, subtle mugging is outweighed by the elephant’s bluster. Ages 3–5. Agent: John Rudolph, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

December 15, 2013
Loquacious Elephant meets her match in taciturn Giraffe in this debut picture book. Gude's flat, cartoonish digital art depicts Elephant heading off for a swim in the first story, "The Water Hole." When she greets the giraffe and tries to start up a conversation with him and is met only with silence, Elephant is both baffled and offended. She walks off in a huff but then turns to a book (All About Giraffes) to try to understand why he snubbed her. She learns that giraffes "don't make much noise" and therefore accepts her new acquaintance's reticent nature. This opens the door for them not only to share the water hole together, but to bake in a story called "Pretzels" and to play dress up in a story called "The Bossy Pirate." Sly humor punctuates the stories, which inevitably center on conflict arising from the friends' very different personalities. At first blush, the picture book reads like an early reader in some ways, with its discrete, tightly paced stories and odd-couple characters, but the vocabulary isn't quite controlled enough to be accessible to independent emergent readers. A humorous picture book about two new, unlikely pals. (Picture book. 3-6)

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February 1, 2014

PreS-Gr 2-Whether it's their first meeting at the water hole, baking pretzels, or playing make believe, a chatty elephant and a silent giraffe learn about the benefits of sharing, cooperating, and compromising. This book is divided into three short episodes, each with a funny twist, a subtle message, and just one or two sentences per spread. The stories stand alone but also contribute to the whole by showing the give-and-take of friendship. Gude's sense of visual and textual pacing and comedic timing is spot-on, as is his use of cinematic angles to bring attention to the reactions of the characters. The digital illustrations do a good job of conveying facial expressions and emotions, and their large size, bright colors, and thick outlines make the book great for sharing with a group. Not only will children find the activities here relatable, but they will also identify with the characters' childlike personalities. Read one or more of the tales out loud, or give this book to beginning readers to enjoy on their own. Similar to Mo Willems's "Elephant and Piggy" stories (Hyperion), this book is a first purchase.-Amy Seto Musser, Denver Public Library

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2014
Preschool-G When Elephant met Giraffe, one of them spoke . . . and one of them didn't. Elephant, the loquacious one, sees Giraffe at the swimming hole and immediately strikes up a conversation. When he realizes it's a one-way street, Elephant leaves in a huff, rubber float tight around his waist. After reading up on the giraffe species, he learns they're a quiet lot and is, therefore, happy to bob with Giraffe in silence. This is the first of three short chapters that compose the picture bookthe remaining two are Making Pretzels (in which a mess is made) and The Bossy Pirate (one guess: Elephant). Gude's bold, cartoon-like Elephant and Giraffe navigate the tricky waters of friendship as they learn gentle lessons, including the art of compromise. Giraffe is, humorously, always breaking onto the page from the right-hand side, so all that's visible is his expressive face and long neck (frankly, he looks like rubber float himself). A nice entry into the world of pal-dom that should also work well as an early reader.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)