The Elephant in the Room

Hot
Published |
Updated
 
0.0 (0)
1541 0
elephant in the room  holly goldberg sloan

Sila Tekin made a mistake.  She didn't mean to.  She meant to make everything better.  But instead she changed everything.

Middle schooler Sila Tekin's mother has been gone for 8 months - not the eight days they thought she would need to go back to Turkey and get her immigration paperwork straightened out.  Sila's mom had to leave Oregon because of Sila.  Sila discovered that her mother was being paid less money than a man doing the same job at the hotel where they both worked.  Sila tried to help.  She  wanted to make things right.  What happened was things went really, really wrong.

Now Sila and her father are living a life of toast and scrambled eggs, Skyping with her mom every night they can and mostly waiting...and waiting...and waiting.

Then Sila's father gets a call to come and take a look at a truck whose engine has quit.  When Sila and her dad drive out to see the truck, they make friends with the owner, a man named Gio and it turns out that Gio's wife had been Sila's second grade teacher, her favorite teacher.

Friends and friendship can show up in the most unexpected places.  For Sila and Gio and Sila's dad that friendship happens about a truck.  At school Sila finds friendship in another unexpected place when she is put into a project to be a partner with Mateo, a boy who has autism.

Now in the middle of these growing friendships and the aching separation of being away from her mother, a large unexpected animal is about to arrive.  This animal loves the smell of the great outdoors.  This animal can find her own water.  This animal senses goodness in people - especially in two young people named Sila and Mateo.  This animal knows a little something about waiting, too.

This is a beautiful, tender, heart grabbing story about how deeply we love our family and how special other people can become to us.  It's also a story about immigrants and autism and how to see the specialness in each other no matter where we come from or where we sit on the neuro spectrum.

If you have a Champion or a Teamplayer reader, they won't want to miss this one.  It will become a favorite to be read and re-read.  Jokesters will get a kick out of the enormous pile of poop.  Investigators will be interested in the cause and effect that runs on many levels here.

Get your tissue box ready around page 190.  Just have it handy.  (Not just one tissue...get the box.)   This is grand and glorious and goes right to the heart of things.

256 pages 978-0735229945 Ages 9-13

Keywords:  immigrants, immigration, elephants, laws, humor, diversity, diverse books, family, mothers, separation, love, connection, acceptance, accepting others, middle school, autism, person with autism, friends, friendship, standing up for yourself, circus, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, 13 year old, If You Liked the One and Only Ivan

Recommended by:  Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com

***********

It's been almost a year since Sila's mother traveled halfway around the world to Turkey, hoping to secure the immigration paperwork that would allow her to return to her family in the United States.

The long separation is almost impossible for Sila to withstand. But things change when Sila accompanies her father (who is a mechanic) outside their Oregon town to fix a truck. There, behind an enormous stone wall, she meets a grandfatherly man who only months before won the state lottery. Their new alliance leads to the rescue of a circus elephant named Veda, and then to a friendship with an unusual boy named Mateo, proving that comfort and hope come in the most unlikely of places.

A moving story of family separation and the importance of the connection between animals and humans, this novel has the enormous heart and uplifting humor that readers have come to expect from the beloved author of Counting by 7s.---from the publisher

*********

“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now

It’s just a spring clean for the May queen”

-- Jimmy Page and Robert Plant (1971)

“An old school bus, painted purple and green, motored into the lot behind the trucks. The bus was followed by two dented passenger vans, three SUVs, and five packed pickup trucks.

Behind the counter, Margo could be heard grumbling, ‘Prepare for an invasion.’

Sila was no longer fixated on her hot chocolate or cream-filled donut. She stared out the window. The rain was coming down hard as the doors to the vehicles opened and people started to spill out. Lots of people. Gio caught Sila’s eye. ‘This could be interesting.’

They weren’t disappointed. The new arrivals were a lively bunch, dressed in bright clothing, with imaginative hairstyles, arms of tattoos, and rattling metal jewelry. A disproportionate number of the crowd wore hats and carried overflowing shoulder bags. Six poodles, dyed purple and pink, came out of one of the vans. In several minutes more than fifty people were waiting to use the donut shop bathroom. Those who didn’t take a place in the crooked line headed to the glass counter and eyed the pastry with real enthusiasm. The group was loud. They talked and horsed around in a way that Sila decided meant many of them had to be related. It wasn’t long before they were moving chairs, sitting in clusters, or standing to argue, while eating donuts and gulping coffee.

Sila was eager to know more about the group when a man close to Gio’s age, with tangled long curls of silver hair, came over and pointed to an empty chair. He asked, ‘Anyone sitting here?’ Gio responded, ‘It’s reserved for you.’

The man lowered himself down with obvious relief onto the red cushion of the metal chair. Sila tried not to eyeball the guy, but it was impossible. The newly arrived traveler had silver rings on all of his fingers, even his thumbs. He wore an orange scarf around his neck, a green army jacket, and faded striped pants, which were tucked into old yellow rain boots.

Sila wanted to say something and was grateful when Gio did it for her by asking, ‘Where’s your group headed?’

The man took a big bite of his cinnamon twist and answered with his mouth full: ‘Nowhere. Real fast.’ The man swallowed. ‘Just finished our last booking.’

Sila stared back out the window at the vehicles. She read the faded words painted on the side of one of the trucks: THE BRIOT FAMILY CIRCUS.”

Sila Tekin is a tween born in Oregon. Her parents Alp and Oya, who have lived in Eugene for a decade and a half, are Turkish citizens who are legally in America with visas. But suddenly facing the threat of deportation because of a legal paperwork issue, Sila’s mother departs for Turkey on an eight-day mission to remedy the problem. Eight months later, she’s still there dealing with a morass of Turkish bureaucracy. Back in Oregon, Sila is miserable because of missing her mother and also because Sila fears that she is personally responsible for the series of events that led to her mother’s absence.

Then, when Sila accompanies her auto mechanic father on a drive out to the country to repair an old pickup, the owner of the vehicle turns out to be Gio Gardino. Gio is the widower of Sila’s late, beloved second-grade teacher. Gio was recently part of a pool of work friends who split the state’s largest-ever lottery payout. Now well-off and retired, Gio has purchased a big chunk of land that is bordered by large stone walls. It’s the perfect new home for an elephant--an elephant named Veda who is in need of a new home now that the down-and-out Briot Circus is packing it in.

This all leads to the relationships that develop between Sila and the elephant, Sila and Gio, and Sila and a boy on the spectrum with whom Sila has been classmates since kindergarten. Comedic, dramatic and enlightening, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM is a moving and powerful read. The story touches on women’s rights issues and animal cruelty issues in a manner that will make a big impression on young readers. The tale is also (literally) full of elephant poop, and astute readers will recognize how elephants in the wild can inadvertently play an oversized role in their ecosystems.

For me, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM was one of those read-it-in-one-gulp stories. It made me smile, and the parallel happy endings moved me to tears of joy.

Recommended by:  Richie Partington, MLIS, California

See more of Richie's Picks <https://richiespicks.com/https://richiespicks.pbworks.com

User reviews

Have you read this book? We'd love to hear what you think. Click the button below to write your own review!
Already have an account? or Create an account