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Gr 4-6 On a perfectly ordinary day, Peter Augustus Duchene goes to the market square of the city of Baltese. Instead of buying the fish and bread that his guardian, Vilna Lutz, has asked him to procure, he uses the coin to pay a fortune-teller to get information about his sister, whom he believes to be dead. He is told that she is alive, and that an elephant will lead him to her. That very night at a performance in the town's ope...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

DiCamillo's allegorical novel seems to pack more mass per square inch than average. The plot is fantastical, surreal: in the fictional Old World city of Baltese, orphaned Peter searches for his sister (whom he has long thought dead), having been instructed by a fortuneteller to "follow the elephant." Against all odds, there is an elephant: conjured up by a magician by accident, it has landed on a woman's lap, crippling her. As DiCamillo expands her premise, she adds more and more characters to her cast (à la The Mouse and His Chil...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

In a fictional Old World city, Peter searches for his sister, instructed by a fortuneteller to "follow the ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More