30 March 2011 SMALL AS AN ELEPHANT by Jennifer Richard Jacobson, Candlewick, March 2011, 275p., ISBN: 978-0-7363-4155-9

"Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven

Like the first dewfall, on the first grass"

-- Eleanor Farjeon, "Morning Has Broken"

"He remembered the first time his mother had taken him to see an elephant.  He had been really little, no older than four.  They'd been at a circus, and he'd hated it -- hated the chaotic music, the sudden snaps of the ringmaster's whip, the diamond-eyed clowns.   So she'd carried him away from all that and into another tent, a tent where the most enormous animal he'd ever seen stood only a few feet away.  Jack had whimpered and buried his face in his mother's neck, but he couldn't resist peeking at the huge creature.  And then the elephant had reached toward him with her trunk, reached toward him and tapped him on the shoulder.  He'd squealed and plunged back under the cover of his mother's chin.  But the elephant had tapped him again, and kept on tapping him till he lifted his head and looked over at her.  Slowly, slowly, she'd reached out her trunk again and touched his cheek.  Jack remembered giggling, remembered feeling as if the elephant tent were the safest place in the world."

Eleven year-old Jack Martel, who has grown into a font of encyclopedic knowledge about elephants, is an unreliable narrator.  After he awakens, in a little Hubba tent at Seawall Campground on Mount Desert Island, to find his mother, his mother's tent, and the rental car all gone, we wonder with him what could possibly have happened to her.  It is only after days of her not returning and Jack's inexplicable refusal to confide in anyone about his actually being alone at the campground, that he finally begins admitting to himself (and, thus, to readers) that this is but the next chapter in his mother's ongoing mental illness.  From his recollections of past episodes that are methodically revealed throughout the tale, we realize that he has had to repeatedly cover for his mother's behavior, as she has taught him to do, so that he won't again end up in the system or with his maternal grandmother whom -- as his mother has also taught him -- is an enemy.  In fact, Jack seems to view anyone who we'd normally consider to be a safe adult, in whom we could and should confide, to be a threat to himself and his disappeared mother.  

But stuck in a campground with no money, a broken cellphone, and Labor Day only days away, what is he going to do?  After abandoning his tent and riding a free shuttle bus across the island to Bar Harbor, Jack embarks upon a shadowy existence, trying to discover his mother's whereabouts and/or find a way to return home on his own.

"'How about a cheeseburger?' asked Big Jack.  'On me.'"Jack knew he should take this man up on the offer, knew he should get something to eat and maybe figure out a way to explain his predicament, but he couldn't.  He was about to lose it.  All it would take was one more question, one more kind look, and Jack would spill everything.  He couldn't risk it.  He had to think.  He had to get air."

SMALL AS AN ELEPHANT is a gripping adventure and survival story.  It is so intriguing to see the extent to which Jack -- a kid who clearly has lived his life not knowing when one of his mother's "spinning" times would next occur -- is willing to ignore common sense and all he feels about right and wrong in order to avoid revealing the truth of the matter about his mother.

There are excellent elephant-related factoids, quotes, and jokes at the beginning of each chapter.  And I love how the story alludes to one of my absolutely favorite children's books of all time -- another story that takes place in both Massachusetts and Maine.