I read a lot of children's books and thoroughly enjoyed this one. I will be ordering it when it becomes available, I think the kids will get a big kick out of it.

A cute book about what happens when you have an elephant. The childlike illustrations are perfect for this book.

To Catch An Elephant is a children’s fiction book written and illustrated by Vanessa Westgate. A blue-haired boy from a Western country checks his atlas for elephant habitats. Soon, he’s stepped off a plane in an exotic land with strange trees and monkeys. He’s wearing his pith helmet and safari suit, sunglasses and binoculars. Elephants located, he baits the trap, hides and waits for the big blue elephant to be caught.

The elephant goes with the boy back to the Western country: plenty of silliness here with a trussed elephant poking out of a safari vehicle, getting a photo and a passport, and travelling on a jet. At the boy’s home, the elephant doesn’t fit (in more ways than one). With some help, the boy understands that the elephant doesn’t belong so it’s back to the exotic country and the challenge of finding the elephant’s herd so he can be where he does belong.

A bit more silliness as boy and elephant part (elephant tears, really?) so “in the end, you would realise how happy animals are living wild and free.” The illustrations are charming, and the (not-at-all-heavy) message of home, family and where we do (and don’t) belong comes through loud and clear. Cute and colourful.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Clavis Publishing

This is a cute story - my favorite part was when the elephant needed a photo for his passport. I do think kids will enjoy it since the idea of catching an elephant is taken to the extreme fun of it all and then comes back down to reality very slowly. I did find a few parts or words that were confusing: the portion about 'suspicious elephants' and some of the words, like "tons' and 'gallons' might not be words they quite understand the meaning of yet.

At first, I was not loving this. I thought I'd stumbled across a big-game hunting guide for little kids! This is one of those books where it's important to read all the way through to the end so that you get the whole message; if I'd abandoned this at the halfway point, my view of it would've been a lot less favourable.

So there's this kid who wants to catch an elephant. So he heads off to elephant country and sets a trap. Then he somehow gets the elephant on a plane and all the way back home to his house. In addition to the neighbours not being very happy, the elephant's not very happy, either. He doesn't want to play in the pool or even eat. A quick visit from the elephant doctor reveals the problem: the elephant is homesick. So the kid takes the elephant back home, finds his herd, and says goodbye. The reader is left with the message that animals should be allowed to live freely in their own habitats. We can visit and look at them, but we shouldn't take them home with us.

The pictures are just okay here, as is the writing. There's one weird phrase, though, that tripped me up:

Remember, a suspicious elephant should not to be underestimated.

That almost sounds like a bad translation of something! I don't know what's going on there.

Overall, this was just okay for me. If you're going to read it with a child, make sure you read all the way through; without the important message at the end, the rest of the book comes across as condoning big-game hunting.

My three year old picked this book out while I was browsing through titles. It was a cute story, easy to follow narrative, and he listened intently through the whole book!

This is a cute book and the illustrations are beautiful. Kids, always so full of big ideas themselves, have great fun thinking about all the difficulties in finding and bringing home an elephant, and they find the thoughts of trying to feed and water such a big creature hilarious! At the same time, it makes children think deeply about home and family, both their own and that of the elephant.

I love elephants, so I was instantly interested, though it wasn’t quite what I expected. At first I was not interested in the message, but it flipped and then I felt better about it. It definitely has more of an education and morally sound perspective than an entertaining and captivating story.