a one-of-a-kind book of elephant sized opposites—and surprises!
/'Opposites' books are pretty great—and not uncommon. They're wonderful for building kids' vocabularies and usually simple enough to keep even the little ones interested. Elephant Elements is a book of opposites, but it's not the common variety—more like one-of-a-kind.
It shows opposites/contrasts in relation to how they would affect elephants. The simple and surprising humour is appealing to all ages, although some of the opposites could be slightly confronting for littlies. You may want to do a quick read-through first to see if there are some that your kids aren’t quite ready for, like living/dead.
Apart from that caution, it's total fun with lots of surprises—you don’t really expect fresh/rotten or solid/liquid when it comes to elephants!
My favourite is the intelligent/stupid contrast, which shows both elephants looking exactly the same.
Ivy ‘reads’ our copy all the time (just by looking at the pictures) and its great seeing her give the opposite a try even if she doesn’t know it—like inflated and un-flated (instead of deflated)
Elephant Elements was first published in French and it's great for all ages—fun to leave lying around the house for visitors to pick up.
At the time of writing, Elephant Elements was only available as a board book on Amazon, but it's worth checking Book Depository, it might have come back in stock.
ELEPHANT ELEMENTS
by Francisco Pittau and Bernadette Gervais – Pavilion Children’s Books, 2001
ages newborn to grownup / picture books + funny, language
