From School Library Journal
PreSchool-K–When six mice agree to help an elephant friend by looking after her offspring, they discover that caring for Little Ellie presents a formidable challenge. It takes four of them to pull her stroller uphill while two push from behind. All six can't hold their own on the seesaw with her, and when it is time for a diaper change, they are totally appalled. Large, cheery color illustrations perfectly capture their struggles. Touches of realism are superimposed on the cartoonlike illustrations, with photographs of bowls on the breakfast table and of six coffee mugs beside the exhausted mice at the end of the day, as well as an enormous graphic of the baby elephant's turd. Children will delight in this funny, quirky story about baby-sitting.
–Sally R. Dow, Ossining Public Library, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PreS-K. Ellie is a little elephant--though Ellie isn't little when compared with the mice that her mother has asked to baby-sit her. The story, told in the second person by the mice, captures in deadpan humor the challenges of taking care of a baby 20 times their size. The collage illustrations effectively use bits of photographs intermingled with watercolor art, and the mix is never better than when showing the mice changing Ellie's diaper--with photos of real elephant dung taking up most of the diaper. Preschoolers will identify with adorable, shy Ellie, pacifier firmly tucked in her mouth, who seems as bewildered by her baby-sitters as they are, at times, with her. This is a one-joke story, but it's an amusing one.
Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
