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As a result of people's fears (we never do learn if indeed the zoo was ever damaged) that damaged cages would result in rampaging wild animals, all the "dangerous" ones are killed, and the elephants end up being starved to death, while they faithfully attempt to extract food from their keepers (captors? torturers?)by repeating the entertaining routines they have been trained to do.
I would not recommend this book for small children and am astonished to see this in the picture book sections... I would have had nightmares for years as a child. As an adult, I find the image of these elephants attempting to carry out their routines when they are too weak to stand absolutely indelible and horrific. I cried reading the book, I cried in a coffeeshop trying to tell a friend about it, and thinking about it now makes me want to lock my arms around my torso and cry. I don't know if it is an indictment of war, or perhaps of zoos, or of human inaction ("easier" to let something die of neglect than actively shoot it... so many of our tragedies in life result from this sort of inaction).
A book I want to recommend to everyone, and at the same time protect them from. And then I think, no, that is just protecting them from a true story, reality. And reality even this poetic is just appallingly sad. Read and weep.