The Girl Who Stole an Elephant

De: Nizrana Farook

Narrado por: Aysha Kala

Author Nizrana Farook makes her middle-grade debut in a daring tale of friendship, risk, and reward, all set against the lush backdrop of Sri Lanka.

“A rich and joyful adventure story for those who enjoy daring escapades in a fairy-tale setting.” (School Library Journal)

Chaya, a nobleman’s rebellious, outspoken, no-nonsense daughter, just can’t resist the shiny temptations the king’s palace has to offer. But playing Robin Hood for her impoverished community doesn’t come without risks, and when Chaya steals the queen’s jewels from a bedside table - a messy getaway jeopardizes the life of a close friend.

After an equally haphazard prison break, Chaya barely escapes on the king’s prized elephant! With leeches and revolution lurking in the jungle, Chaya leads her companions on a thrilling adventure. After leaving her village as a thief, can she return as a hero? Or will Chaya’s sticky fingers be the beginning - or the end - of everything for the intrepid gang? 

Debut author Nizrana Farook spins a pause-resisting middle-grade tale in a lush fictional Sri Lankan setting. Just right for adventure fans, the book explores themes of friendship and loyalty, risk and reward, and heroism.

©2020 Nizrana Farook (P)2022 Recorded Books

Mediocre

Don’t see why this got such good reviews. Seems like it’s written for a middle schooler maybe.

Loved this listen! Exciting and fast paced

I thought this was an interesting book for my 8-year-old, with themes of life and death, and right and wrong. The story was so different from what we’ve read together so far it was a great change of pace from typical books set in the United States or Europe. I agree with others who say the ending is abrupt, which was a shame given the build up of the rest of the story, but was sufficient for my 8-year-old. A more elaborate and realistic resolution could have added another 100 pages to the book and would have been less interesting to children.

I loved hearing the proper pronunciation of the names from Sri Lanka.

Other reviewers found it hard to differentiate between characters, but I did not have that problem at all. I did find that the accent and phrasing were hard for me to always catch the correct word (I am hard of hearing) so I slowed the pace down to .95 and it resolved my issue.

Great story, throughly enjoyed it!

The story was great and I am glad I listened to it since I probably would have struggled with the names. It would have received 5 stars but there were very little descriptions of the main characters and I like to be able to "see" them. My only complaint regarding the recording was that the narrator used the same voice for all the characters and that made it harder to comprehend who was speaking.

It was a wonderful story

I love what Chaya did to help and save so many people just such a beautiful story!

We aren’t even finishing it

I was reading it to my kids but it needed to go back to the library and we were heading out of town. I thought I’d get the audio version to finish up on our trip. There’s no difference between character voices and it’s just so dry sounding that we can’t finish it.