After the death of her parents, a young girl goes to live with her aunt. She meets a young elephant that has also lost his family and gains friendship and support enabling her to cope with her loss.

The awareness this books brings about a childs painful struggle of loosing both parents and how the child dealt with it truly inspiring , Aids illness in poor community's needs to also be brought to the attention of everyone ( )

I liked this book for a variety of reasons. It was definitely a great “feel good” book, the illustrations were almost water color like, and it told of actual real life problems. The story really struck me because it was such a feel good type of story. You really feel for the girl who seems to be alone in her “home now” which she refers to as her new home. Her parents have passed and now all she knows is that where she is now is “home now” because her aunt always says “this is your home now”. Struggling to fit in she befriends an elephant where they become the best of friends and its awesome form the reader’s perspective to see this transpire. I found myself smiling at times in the story just because it was such a positive feeling. The second thing I liked about this book was the drawings. It appeared as if they were done with watercolor and was fascinating to look at in a book. I felt also as if I could feel the feelings of the characters in the book through the drawings. For me it really tied together the text and made the book even better to read. On one page it has the elephant and the girl together playing and it almost seems as if they are fused in together as one which I thought was a nice depiction of what their friendship had become. The last piece about this story that I liked was that the sort of conflict of the story could relate to a lot of children around the world. It is very easy to relate or feel for a girl who has lost a lot and is now in her “home now” trying to adapt to a new life and gain friends along with coping with a new school. ( )

Heartbreaking this little girl loses her parents over AIDS and now she is all alone. She doesn't think she can be happy until she meets an elephant and they bond and become good friends.

I liked this book because of the illustrations and plot. First, the illustrations both enhanced the story and were appropriate to the mood of the story. For example, the illustrations allowed the reader to see what the people looked like and the emotion between Sieta and the elephant. Second, the plot was very relatable to students and readers. Several students move around a lot and have to call more than one place home, like Sieta. Also, she found light when things weren't the best in her life. That is a great theme and message to send to students. With that said, the theme is to always try to find the light in ever situation, no matter how dark it can be. ( )