The Shadow Elephant

A gentle story about sadness showing that sometimes all you need to feel better is the openness of someone who accepts you as you are.A Financial Times Best Children’s Book of 2021This is a subtle story about an elephant who is feeling sorrowful, and nothing seems to interest him or lift his spirits. Illustrated with a striking contrast between shadow and light, the moody blue elephant appears to live in a different world from his colorful savanna friends. Empathy is a tricky emotion for children and adults alike to grasp, but The Shadow Elephant manages to walk the line between sadness, understanding, and emotional connection. Here we witness, in a story that unfolds at a natural, gentle pace, that it’s okay to be sad and to show it, and that this sorrow is not necessarily a problem to be fixed, but is a feeling to acknowledge without judgement. This simple act of acceptance and validating another creature’s feelings is subtle, yet, it is an essential step to true empathy.