Review: The Elephant

The pain of losing a loved-one weighs like a heavy presence on those that are left behind. Death, is hard on the living. Thoughts of what was, what is and what could have been loom everywhere. The proverbial elephant in the room lumbers about, its presence felt, knocking things in its path. Carnavas, in his book The Elephant, a Middle Grade novel just recently released in North America, explores what happens when a young girl starts seeing an elephant hanging around her Dad, as he deals with the death of her mother, his wife.

Where is my Mommy?

“I am your mother, and I have the scars to prove it,” I thought. “I gave birth to you myself.” The more I thought about the grueling adoption process, the three failed adoptions we had had previously, and one of the roughest, first 18 months of life on record, I felt fairly secure I could call myself a mother. Moms, after all, endure it all. And, live on to fight another day. Here we all were. Living, happily, still fighting.