The Magician's Elephant

I needed a read-aloud book for the kids and although I wasn't entirely pleased with The Tale of Desperaux, I'd heard something good about this from somewhere and decided to give it a shot. The story is simple enough but there are many polysyllabic vocabulary words that I'm sure my nine- and six-year-old wouldn't know. Regardless, they really enjoyed the story. It's basically a boy's quest to find his lost sister. It was nothing earth-shattering but I will say it painted strong pictures in the mind's eye. Both my kids would ask me to read one more chapter when I'd stop reading. We went through this one pretty quickly. Both kids gave it high marks.