Elmer: 30th Anniversary Edition: 1 (Elmer Picture Books)

Product Information

David McKee has a keen insight into what will appeal to little children, a lovely way with words, producing bold and attractive illustrations, and a story with a strong heart at its core. The inspiration for the character was not, as popular legend would have it, in response to a racist incident experienced by his mixed race family, but simply because McKee liked drawing elephants and squares. If my son was an elephant, he would be an elephant like Elmer: yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green, black, white. The perfect introduction to the world of Elmer and his colourful elephant friends for the youngest of children.

This charming, funny picture book shows the boy realising that everything is OK – and thinking of all the advantages of this new point of view. As Elmer is accepted and, indeed feted for, his differences, so can children (and grownups) be an important part of a diverse and supportive community. Explore our beautiful Elmer gifts, as everyone's favourite elephant explore the jungle around him with his friends.Elmer is an elephant with yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green, black and white squares arranged as a patchwork. Of course this makes Elmer sad that he is no longer accepted and begins to understand how it feels to be treated like an outsider. In 2020 David won the British Book Awards Illustrator of the Year Award and BookTrust’s Lifetime Achievement Award. This gorgeous sitting-style plush of the colourful little elephant, with his distinctive long trunk and large ears will brighten up any nursery. Because Elmer learns to embrace his patchwork, all of the other elephants decide to paint themselves multi-coloured once a year and celebrate a carnival of colour!

The range of story suggestions throughout the book are ideal to prompt imaginative discussion and children may even have their own favourites that they’d like to share. being small (4-7 years old) do not mean not being able to reason and distinguish the emotions and circumstances of the events of life. They much prefer his multicoloured and fun loving persona, and reassure Elmer that they love him because of his differences, and not in spite of them. There is a pretty high picture to text ratio but there is still quite a substantial amount of text, usually a few sentences on each page. The books are published in the United Kingdom by Andersen Press and were published in the United States by HarperCollins originally, Andersen Press USA now publishes in America.

So there's a bit of a sense of the story encouraging children to be themselves in all their mischievousness too - that their fun and games bring laughter. Unfortunately, Elmer thinks that maybe the other elephants are laughing at him – for being different – instead of laughing with him – for being funny and loveable.