Whiskers grew in sparse patches on their cheeks and chins like mildew. Harris's mahouts, Nak and Nang, are 'scruffy as sewer rats, beady eyed and sharp of tooth.

The potential for brutality and violence is there, but it never errupts. Harris does an admirable job of presenting realities of cruelty to animals and the poverty that exists in Thailand in Tua and the Elephant without making it too graphic, visual or disturbing for the intended audience of this book. As soon as the farangs are gone, the mahouts take all the money out of the mother's lap and tug sharply on the elephant's ears. The money is supposed to be passed from the elephant to the mahout, but this elephant drops it into the lap of a mother begging on the street with her baby. Tua watches the elephant and her mahouts (elephant masters) as they take money from the farangs in exchange for fruit to feed to the elephant. Even better, I wasn't tempted to break the pace of the story by flipping to the back of the book to look up words every page or so. At first I was thrown off by this, but as I read on I realized that, whether I knew the exact meaning of the words or not, they were in perfect context and their meanings became clear. Harris sprinkles Thai words throughout Tua and the Elephant generously, but without a glossary. A series of events leads Tua to discover a hole in the wall of the night market that leads to a crowded street full of farangs - tourists.

Tua makes her way through the market, greeting friends, eating more delicious treats, and running errands and doing chores for them. First stop, Somachi's cart where Tua is treated to a banana roti with chocolate sauce and condensed milk.

When her mother heads out for a night shift, Tua puts away her homework and heads out to the night market of Chiang Mai (photos of the night market at the end of this review) where she has many friends. Which is good, because with her mother working long hours at a restaurant, she has befriended a village of people to help raise her. The prologue of Tua and the Elephant tells us that 'when Tua was born, a nurse in the delivery room exclaimed, 'Look at the little peanut!' Tua, in Thai, means peanut.' At ten-years-old, Tua is still very small but also very independent, resourceful and social. Aptly, Sara Gruen, author of the adult novel Like Water for Elephants, wrote a great review of Tua and the Elephant that ran in the New York Times Book Reviewin May. Tua and the Elephant is a beautiful, delightful little book set in Thailand about a girl and an elephant by RP Harris with marvelous illustrations by Taeeun Yoo.

Tua and the Elephant by R.P. Harris