How to use this Page

Elephant Run is an exciting action-packed story, set in 1941/2 in Burma (now Myanmar) just as Japan is turning its sites on it for military purposes.

Nick Freestone, 14, has been living with his mother and step dad in London, but now it is 1941, the Blitz is in full swing and one night, the building they are living in is destroyed by a bomb. His parents have become increasingly involved in wartime activities and Nick’s mother decides to send him to Burma, to live on his father’s timber plantation, Hawk’s Nest, and, she believes, in relative safety.

But safety really did prove to be only relative, since there is some tension in Burma because many of the Burmese want their independence from Britain. This sentiment is also shared by some of the mahouts, the men who work and care for the timber elephants on the Freestone plantation. After the Japanese have successfully invaded Rangoon, Burma’s capital, with the help of some of the mahouts, they also take over Hawk’s Nest, turning it into a military center of operations. Nick’s father is arrested and sent to a POW camp; Nick is held prisoner at the plantation and forced to work in what is now the garden of the cruel Colonel Nagayoshi. Nick’s work is supervised by the kinder Captain Sonji, but he is also at the mercy with the pitiless, vengeful Bukong, a former mahout who seems to enjoy beating Nick and others with his cane.

The one person who has real freedom of movement is Hilltop, a Buddhist monk who seems to be able to speak with the elephants and who is said to be over 100 years old. Hilltop knows the Burmese jungles better that anyone and offers Nick his one hope of escaping and rescuing his father.

Elephants are one of my favorite animals and I was very interested in that part of this book. Smith’s mahouts are very kind to their animals and seem to genuinely appreciate what they are capable of doing. One elephant in particular stands out in this book, a character in his own right, a example of the old adage that elephants never forget. Hannibal is a very large elephant who was once savagely attacked by a tiger while tied up. Not longer able to be used as a timber elephant, he roams the jungle. But as the story unfolds, the reader learns the role various people played in Hannibal’s life that demonstrates the truth in that adage.

Elephant Run is an ideal book for anyone who likes a well written, well researched book of historical fiction. It seamlessly incorporates the cultural history of mahouts and their elephants with the factual history of the Japanese invasion of Burma. In this story, the invasion centers on building a fictional airfield at Hawk’s Nest and using POWs, both foreign and Burmese, to build the very real Burma Railroad.  This was an undertaking that resulted in a very high death rate among the workers, a fact Smith continuously points out. Because Nick is not familiar with life on his father’s plantation, Smith uses it as an opportunity to talk about the work of the mahouts, how the elephants are trained and other aspects of plantation life in Burma to inform the reader without straying from the story.  Some might find this pedantic, I found it interesting.

This book is recommended for readers age 12 and up.
This book was purchased for my personal library.

There are excellent curriculum aides for Elephant Run are available at the author’

Display Comments Add a Comment

Traitor begins in the winter of 1944. Anna Brünner, 16, lives in Stiegnitz, a small village, with her mother and grandmother, not exactly Nazi supporters, and her younger brother Felix, member of the Hitler Youth and completely indoctrinated in National Socialist dogma. Older brother Seff is fighting at the Eastern front. Anna's father, Felix Brünner, had been a conjuror with a traveling circus before marrying her mother, and had committed suicide when Anna was still a baby.

During the week, Anna goes to school in Schonberg, living in an attic room rented from a widow, and coming home every Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.

While walking home from the train station, Anna notices some odd footprints in the snow. Becoming curious, she follows them all the way to her family’s barn. Climbing up into the hay loft, Anna finds a sleeping man lying there, wet and emaciated.  Anna assumes that he is an escaped patient from the nearby mental asylum, but at home, her grandmother tells her about eight Russian POWs who had escaped in the area. Seven of them were found and shot on the spot. Anna naturally assumes that the man in the barn is the last missing Russian, but still feels sorry for him.  She tells her grandmother that she thinks she is getting a cold and is given a jug of steaming milk and told to go to bed. Naturally, Anna sneaks it out to the hay loft and gives the milk to the man.

Anna continues to think about this man and before returning to school on Sunday, she givess him clean, dry clothes, some food and takes him to the Moserwald Bunker, a large complex that had been used for defense at one time, but has long since been abandoned. Using hand motions, she explains that he must stay there or he will be caught. With the help of a calendar, Anna indicates that she will return the following weekend.

Although Anna knows it is treasonous to help the enemy, she continues to bring the Russian, whose name is Maxim, more clothing and food. After giving him her older brother’s clothes, Anna becomes afraid that they can be traced back to her if Maxim if found. As Anna becomes increasingly stressed by this, her landlady, Mrs. Beraneck, notices and, knowing she is not a supporter of the NS regime, Anna finally confides in her that she is hiding Maxim. Just before Christmas vacation, Anna find clothing, toiletries and some kitchen utensils in her room for Maxim, left there by Mrs. Beranek.

The police have by now basically given up their search for Maxim. By now, the war is not going well for the Germans and the Russian Army has been pushing westward, getting closer and closer to Stieglitz. Anna’s brother Felix, however, has been watching her closely and following her when she goes to visit the bunker. He finally confronts Anna, telling her that he thinks she is hiding the prisoner and reminding her that that is treason, punishable by death. She explains that she goes to the bunker to be alone and write poetry. He accepts this explanation with skepticism.

Traitor is a taut, psychological novel, full of the kind of suspense that grips the reader, making it impossible to put the book down. It relies, for the most part, on Anna’s thoughts to move the narrative forward, so the reader can see the interesting play of what she thinks and what she does. It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading. There seemed no possibility that this story of Anna and Maxim could have any kind of

Display Comments Add a Comment

Music for the End of Time is the story about the time that French composer Olivier Messiaen spent as a prisoner of war in *Stalag VIIIA, in Görlitz, Germany. It begins with his arrival at the camp, clutching a knapsack. After the prisoners are settled into their barracks, cold, tired and hungry, one of the other prisoners wants to know if there is food in Olivier’s knapsack. Grabbing the bag, the other prisoners discover there is only sheet music in it. Disappointed, they go back to their bunks.

Not long after his arrival, while Olivier is listening to the morning birdsong, a prison guard comes over and tells the composer to follow him. He takes in to a small, cold room off a lavatory, and tells Messiaen that he may come here for a while every day and compose his music.

At first, nothing comes to Messiaen. He feels discouraged, believing no one will hear anything he creates. One day, a new truckload of prisoners arrive, two of whom are carrying instruments. Inspired by the sight of these musicians, Messiaen soon begins a composition based on the birdsong he can hear, even in prison.

Late in the winter, Messiaen finishes his composition, and on January 14, 1941, along with three other prisoner musicians, performs his newly written composition, Quartet for the End of Time, for all the 5,000 prisoners in the camp, as well as the German guards.

This was a lovely story accompanied by the beautiful pastel illustrations done by Beth Peck and I highly recommend it, despite some criticism. The author focuses only on the story of Messiaen’s musical creation, which is fine. I think, however, she leaves out some biographical information that might be interesting to know. Messiaen was a prisoner of war; he was not in the same kind of camp that Jews and other enemies of the Reich were put into. She says he survived the war, but he really spent one year as a prisoner of war, from May 1940 to May 1941. In her Author’s Note, Bryant does explain that the piece Messiaen wrote was called “Quartet for the End of Time" and it is based on a passage from the Books of Revelations, when an angel announces “There will be no more time.”

This book is recommended for readers age 9-12.
This book was borrowed from the Yorkville Branch of the NYPL.

Music for the End of Time received the following well-deserved honors:
2006 Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year
2006 Cooperative Children's Book Center, CCBC Choices List
2006 Society of Illustrators "The Original Art" Annual Exhibition

More information about Music for the End of Time, including a link to a very useful discussion guide may be found Jen Bryant Books

More information about Olivier Messiaen may be found at The Olivier Messiaen Page

An a short sample of Quartet for the End of Time may be seen and heard at YouTube
*Stalag is an acronym for Stammlager, which is a prisoner of war camp for soldiers not including any officers.

Non-Fiction Monday is hosted this week by Wrapped in Foil 

Display Comments Add a Comment