Review: “When the elephant walks”
Keiko Kasza
A booklet of children´s literature
(Reviewed by Rocio S. Gonzalez)

In 1990, Paperstar first published “When the elephant walks”, a didactic book written and illustrated by Keiko Kasza. By reading this book students from 4th/5th grade will find a humorous story in which the writer describes a chain of reactions of different animals scaring each other.
In this story, the walking elephant scares a bear, who runs away and scares a crocodile. This reptile swims for his life and scares a wild Hog, and so on, when finally, a little mouse is scared. In order to make the reading easier, the author and illustrator of this book uses not only big and charming illustrations, but also simple sentences, which correspond to the pictures. What is more , Kasza uses repetition of structure in her sentences, eliciting from students what is coming next in the story.
The book has the didactic potential to introduce different animals and the actions they perform, such as run, swim, jump, etc. Values are also another topic dealt in the story. At the end of the book the author adds an after-reading section called “A note from Keiko Kasza”. Here, she encourages children to reflect on feeling scared and the sensations experimented every time they are afraid of something. She also cheers them not to feel afraid by reflecting on the moral of the story, “even someone bigger than you could get scared too”.
  I recommend this book because of the topics which are developed. This kind of predictable stories are a great tool for students to get engaged on debates about the topic.