Life Changing Moments

The book I chose for my summer reading project this year is "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo that talks about Lizzie, that lives in a nursing home for old people and likes to spend time with one of the nurses' nine year old son named Karl. He reminds her about her brother Karl that she called Karli. She constantly talks about an elephant when she is with Karl so she decides to tell him and his mother the story about the elephant. Her story begins in Dresden, Germany, in the time of the Second World War, were she used to live with her brother, mom, which everyone called Mutti, and her dad, that they called Papi. Papi was sent to fight the war in France and since then, Lizzie began to feel angry and lonely and Mutti began to work in a zoo with elephants. Mutti had been there at the birth of an  elephant, and because she was the only one present, the director of the zoo said that she was aloud to choose the elephant's name, and she named it Marlene. Marlene's mother had died one or two months after her birth. One evening, Lizzie was sitting in the garden, when Mutti came out and brought her a coat, then Mutti began to talk about Marlene, which she did a lot, and that made Lizzie feel, that her mom thought, that the elephant was more precious for her than Lizzie and Karli. She was so angry at Mutti that she told her to stop talking about Marlene, that there was a war going on and she was only thinking about the elephant and she said many other things to her. Mutti said that she had been talking so much about Marlene because she was worried about her because the zoo director said that when the bombing began in Dresden, the animals would not have were to hide and that they would escape from the zoo, causing more chaos than there was already happening with the bombing. The director also said that they would have to kill the carnivore animals and the elephants but Mutti could not stand the idea of having to see Marlene die. The next day, Lizzie and Karl were going to school when they heard the sounds of planes, German planes.


"Like Papi, I could no longer even take pleasure in Karli's playfulness. He went on joking and juggling just the same, with the world falling apart about us. I became more and more irritated with him, and Mutti too." (p. 33-34)

When I read this quote, I realized how Papi's absence affected Karli and Lizzie in different ways. Karli was just the same, playing and laughing as he almost always did. On the other hand, Lizzie felt lonely, sad, angry, and as she said on the quote, more irritated with other people. Her attitude made some people change in a small way and caused more fights in the family. With all that there was going on in her life, I understand that she was feeling that way, but maybe it would make things worse in the future. 


"I have had an idea, Elizabeth, in the night, a wonderful idea, a grand idea. A secret." (p. 43)

This was what Mutti told Lizzie one day before she was going to school. The author wrote this quote in a way that makes you want to keep reading and the words "wonderful" and "grand" make you know that somethings big is going to happen. I think that Mutti's idea is to take Marlene out of the zoo and keep her in the garden.



My prediction for the next chapters, as I said before, is that Mutti will take Marlene out of the zoo and keep her in the garden until the bombing begins. And when the bombing begins, Mutti, Karli, Lizzie and Marlene will have to escape to be safe. I´m not so sure about what is going to happen to Papi, if he is going to come back from the war or if he is going to die in the war. In conclusion, this book is very interesting so far and it shows you how the war affected not only people but also animals. It also shows you the problems that the Second World War caused and the crazy things people did to save someone they loved.