IT IS A TREE

In a version of the Indian fable “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” an assortment of jungle animals plays a blindfolded guessing game.

The story begins wordlessly with the lion giving each animal a blindfold before leading the elephant to another area. Blindfolded, the lion cub feels the elephant’s leg and declares, “It is a tree.” Readers will immediately see the illustration of a tree trunk within the speech bubble and understand how the cub came to that conclusion. Next, comically balancing atop a ladder, the blindfolded giraffe feels what must be a wall but is in reality the elephant’s flat side. The game continues with the hippo mistaking the elephant’s trunk for a snake; the crocodile, a wrinkled ear for a fan; the zebra, the tail for a rope; and the turtle, a tusk for a pipe. Each of these guesses is expressed in a simple sentence beginning “It is a…” with a visual of the animal’s guess to provide picture cues for emerging readers. A final review lists each word next to its position on an elephant-shaped brick wall with tree-trunk legs, a rope tail, two fans, and a befuddled snake dangling between two pipes. But as readers turn the page, the now-cheering friends, blindfolds off, reveal, “It is an elephant.” The amusing cartoon artwork makes for an excellent enhancement. The story’s origins are revealed only in the cataloging-in-publication statement.

Cleverly designed for new readers’ success.