The elephant by Peter Carnavas

University of Queensland Press, 2017. ISBN 9780702259616
(Age: Primary) I highly recommend this book. Olive imagines the sadness felt by her family members as different grey animals. These animals appear to follow the person around and pull them down, while the grey animals are there the person seems to have trouble being happy.
Olive is determined to get rid of these animals and make her family happy again. Olive confides in her best friend to help her with a task that seems so mammoth. She soon realises that getting rid of these animals may not be as easy as she first thought but she is determined.
This book touches on a topic that is very real but not talked about especially with younger children. This book is well written for younger readers and it gives some idea about the topic of depression without going into too much detail. The book uses language easily understood by younger readers.
The simple illustrations in the book support the story and help to depict the mood of the chapter.
I would recommend this book for primary school age children; it could be used as a class novel to support learning around emotions and encouraging discussions about different emotions.
Karen Colliver