I bought this for my 4th grader daughter. She had read a DiCamillo book in school, and loved it, and the premise of this book sounded promising. I decided to read it aloud and was glad I did, as some of the writing and words were beyond what my daughter could have read and understood. Granted, she isn't a brilliant, gifted reader, but she can handle books in her age group. Still, the story was a bit dreary and moved slowly. The soldier surrogate father, Vilna Lutz, to Peter was just a bit bizarre. I just didn't see how he added to the story. As I read the book, I couldn't envision anything beyond a grey city, constantly dreary where noone was ever really happy. When you read a book and let your imagination picture the scenery, you don't want grey, bleak pictures throughout the story.
I guess that sounds kind of harsh, but it's how we felt. I didn't get the sense that my kid was overly enthralled with the story either, and no, we didn't skim the book, and I didn't color my daughters view of the book while reading it.Get more detail about The Magician's Elephant.
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