I was looking through a recent email sent to me via a publisher. They were promoting a few new books and What About an Elephant?: A Fact-Filled Savanna Adventure by Deborah Kerbel and illustrated by Dawn Lo was one of them (it is due in mid-August 2025). There was a companion title, What About an Octopus?: A Fact-Filled Underwater Adventure also by Kerbel and Lo (but is currently available) advertised as well. I looked around and found online reader copies for both.
While I was not thinking they were the BBE (Best Book(s) Ever) I did think they were PDC (Pretty Darn Cute). They are a logical way to explain to a child the real way to interact with a creature the size of an elephant and as unique as the octopus. They tell us don’t do X or Y, but you can do Z; and to watch out for this and that (elephant dung; octopuses inking) and so forth. It is told in a relatively easy way to understand the text, and is not too childish but not too mature either. There are side facts that will expand on the information in little boxed off areas and tend to be a bit older, allowing the book to adapt. At the end there are more facts that are straight forward and not intermixed with a fictionalized presentation.
Some of these facts you will know (the octopuses have 8 tentacles) and some might be new (such as it is now preferred to say octopuses instead of octipod or octopi). But what will be familiar is the savanna and ocean illustrations. We have seen these in other books. Yet, they are cute and fun, and colorful with the right amount of detail. Sometimes they might not be as “fleshed out” as I would like them to have been, and even some facts are not mentioned (the girl of the story jumps into the watering hole without looking for predators when playing with the elephant) but the point is not to frighten but to educate in a grabbing manner.