I like that this is an informational book with a personal touch. The author incorporates his love of traveling with his newly learned information about elephants. I liked his snapshots of typical Thailand village life. The book gives a positive light to elephants and explains how the village people see them as pets and sometimes even family. In between factual information, we learn of an elephant named Wan Pen. This elephant gives rides to visitors and overall helps the Thai economy. I like that this book teaches specific Asian elephant facts while teaching the reader that family is not just blood-related. I love the personification of elephants in this book and it taught me to see animals as more than just pets. ( )

An Elephant in the Backyard by Richard Sobol (Author)
Dutton Juvenile (2004), Edition: 1, 32 pages

An Elephant in the Backyard is a picture book written by Richard Sobol. This book belongs in the Informational Book genre because this is based on real life since there are no illustrations. Instead, Richard Sobol went to the village of Ban Tha Kleng in Thailand and took pictures of Jak and Muay as they play with their pet elephant, Wan Pen. The book follows this family in this village where there are more than eighty domesticated elephants living side by side with the villagers. One of the really interesting things that I learned from the book is that while the children are in school, Wan Pen goes to school as well. There is a person who makes his living training elephants and domesticating them.

I thought this was a really neat look into a culture very different from my own. I love the image of Wan Pen playing soccer with her human friends and playing with them like she is a normal sized pet, instead of a eight ton elephant. This book is worth picking up and reading if only for the incredible pictures of this little elephant in this community where people don’t bat an eye at an elephant and a person walking down the street together. This doesn’t necessarily teach me anything really specific about Thai culture or elephants, and I had some basic knowledge about the Thai people’s relationships with elephants, but this book was incredibly entertaining and informative. ( )

I liked this book for two reasons. I enjoyed the fact that reading this book didn’t feel like I was reading an informational text. The facts and ideas presented were interesting and about a culture I had no idea about. For instance, I didn’t know there was any place in the world that exotic animals like elephants are kept as pets and can rome the streets like any other animal. Also, I was surprised that the person who trains elephants only trains one at a time and trains them for more than a decade! I also enjoyed the photographs in the book. Seeing pictures of the village in rural Thailand helped me picture what life is like there and how important these elephants are to the citizens of the village. Seeing the how the elephants are part of the everyday routine in this village gave me a glimpse of what Thai people value in their culture. They not only roam the streets freely, but there are also ceremonies held for them like when they are named for instance. A variety of fruits are laid in front of the elephant and whichever fruit it chooses first, becomes its name. I think the big idea of this book is to inform the reader about the role that elephants play in this uncommon village in rural Thailand. ( )

Grades 1-4, might be fun to use in a class where students are talking about having different types of pets and how those in other parts of the world have completely different kind of pets from us. ( )

This is a really fun book about elephants in the village of The Klang in Tailand. This book explains about how these free-roaming elephants are taken care of and trained, and specifically tells about the elephant named Wan Pen (which means full moon). Wan Pen is is like a four-legged "sister" to Jak and Muay. She even plays soccer with the neighborhood children- though they never allow her to play goalie. This is a fun book for elementary children to see how people in the other side of the world live, and the idea of having a pet elephant is one the kids would probably find fascinating. ( )