The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Myth? Fable? Fairy tale? This short novel for children begs to be read aloud. It has all the elements of a children's story - repetition, lost animals, heroic children but the language needs the adult read aloud nuance to hear the much deeper meaning. Peter Augustus Duchene has a mysterious encounter with a fortune teller which leads him to believe that his long lost sister is alive. Even stranger is the expectation that finding her will involve an elephant - an animal that does not exist in Baltese. Ahhh but there is a clumsy magician, a nun who is asleep at the door and a policeman who believes in the power of wanting. There are also dreamy illustrations in shades of grey just in case our imagination needs a boost. Lovely.