Dindy and the Elephant

Bored with her little brother Pog’s childish games, Dindy decides that she’s finally grown-up enough for a real adventure. While her mother is sleeping and the servants are busy, she takes Pog deep into the tea gardens, a place they are never supposed to go alone.

Terrified by wild animals and snubbed by the local children, Dindy starts to realize how little she really knows about India, even though it’s the only place she’s ever called home. But little does she know her life is about to be turned upside down when her mother is taken ill and her father tells her they are leaving India, for good.

Dindy and the Elephant by Elizabeth Laird is a wonderful portrait of a young British child coming to terms with leaving her beloved childhood home, while at the same time realizing that many of the things she has been raised to believe are wrong.

This is Elizabeth Laird’s novel for younger children, aged 7+. Also suitable for them is The Fastest Boy in the World. Suitable for readers aged 9+ are her books Song of the Dolphin Boy, Kiss the Dust, Welcome to Nowhere, Oranges in No Man’s Land, The Garbage King, Red Sky in the Morning, Crusade, and Jake’s Tower.