An Elephant in the Garden
Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Michael Foreman
Harper Collins Children’s Books


First published some ten years ago, it’s good to see this tale now made available to a new audience. It was inspired by a real life rescue of an elephant during World War 2.


From her bed a frail old lady named Lizzie, resident of a Canadian nursing home, relates her story to her nurse and the nurse’s son, Karl, who reminds Lizzie of her young brother.


During WW2, Lizzie, then sixteen, her pacifist mum, Mutti, and her younger brother Karli lived in Dresden. Their peace-loving Papi was called to fight, Mutti went to work at the Dresden Zoo with the elephants. She had seen a small elephant born and named him Marlene. Rather than have the creature subject to mercy killing like the other zoo animals, should Dresden be bombed, she had persuaded the zoo keeper to let her take the baby elephant home to her back garden and care for it.


When Dresden comes under heavy bombing in 1945 and the city is destroyed. Lizzie, her mum and Karli decide to escape into the country and head with the elephant, towards Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotto’s farm. At first they think the place is empty but in a barn they come upon Peter, a Canadian flyer who has bailed out of his plane. What does one do when encountering an enemy combatant? Mutti is conflicted but Lizzie is immediately drawn to the young man. Together they all make their way on a perilous trek towards the American lines, helped at one point by a Countess who asks them to take a homeless school choir along with them. As they journey Lizzie becomes ever closer to Peter.


Eventually, despite Peter’s best efforts, Mutti and the children are sent to a camp along with other displaced Germans and Peter returns to Canada promising to come back and marry Lizzie. Is he able to keep that promise? And what of Lizzie’s Papi? Does he survive the war?


A gripping, enormously moving tale that offers an unusual perspective on what was a horrendous time for countless numbers of people. I read it in a single sitting.