Review
Feeling separate is a universal experience. Too often these days, we live behind picket fences, or
triple-locked doors. We live behind stone walls or lines in the sand. We live behind fear or
worry.
The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo is a story about people who break through these barriers - a story brimming with connection and the hope, love and, yes, even
magic that comes from those connections. On the one hand it's a magical, faraway fable, and on the other hand a very present and real story, both woven together (dare I say connected together?) in the seamless way that can only come from Kate DiCamillo. Loss, love, and hope are recurring themes in her work - think
Because of Winn-Dixie,
The Tiger Rising, and
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, to name just a few - and in all of them she displays her knack for...
Beyond the Book
The magician in
The Magician's Elephant makes an elephant appear. But what about an elephant that
disappears?
In 1918, Houdini made an elephant vanish from the middle of the Hippodrome Theatre in New York before over 5000 pairs of eyes. Jennie was an 8 foot tall, 6,000 pound Asian elephant and when Houdini brought her onto the stage she would raise her trunk as though she were saying hello to the audience, and then she would walk into a box on wheels - and disappear.
Who taught Houdini how to do this magic trick? And how did Houdini do it?
First the...
