Elephant Island

A shipwrecked elephant makes his tiny island a home for the many friends who come to the rescue, in the new picture book from New York Times Illustrated Book Award winning author/artist Leo Timmers.

Caught in a storm, Arnold the elephant washes up on a tiny island. Along comes Mouse in a little dingy and Arnold steps aboard...uh-oh! They use the wreckage to make the island bigger. And here’s Dog—can this boat take Arnold's weight? Uh-oh!

None of the animals can save the shipwrecked elephant but each broken vessel provides new materials for another intricate construction. Wheels and pulleys create a Ferris wheel, an elevator, a waffle maker. All the animals work as a team to build increasingly intricate constructions that turn the desert island into a fun park city. Soon there is a whole community and enough space for everyone!

As with all Leo Timmers picture books, Elephant Island has many layers of discovery. Tapping into the childhood pleasure of contraptions, this cheerful picture book is full of complex and playful visual detail and humor that Leo Timmers’ readers love. Preschoolers who enjoy meccano and lego will find joy on every page with the creation of each new imaginative construction, packed with mechanical detail on bright double page spreads. Elephant Island is a runaway hit in Europe.

Other books by Leo Timmers:
Monkey On The Run
Where Is The Dragon?
Who’s Driving?
Gus’s Garage
Franky
Bang!

Praise for Elephant Island:

"This light-tension, winking tale of a makeshift homecoming is sure to delight audiences at story time."—Foreword Reviews, starred

"A picture book tribute to the power of collective, constructive play, and to heeding the call to freedom."—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Leo Timmers:
Where Is The Dragon? "A lilting Seussian singsong, with wonderful, surprising rhymes, and little readers and their grown-ups will have a great time combining their voices and giggling through the proceedings." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred

Monkey On The Run: “The silly antics of the little monkey provide forward momentum, but the details in each illustration kept calling us back for a more thorough examination.”—A New York Times / New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children's Book 2019

Gus’s Garage: “Clearly, one animal’s clutter is another pig’s livelihood in this buoyant, rhyming tale.” —The New York Times

Who‘s Driving? “Belgian illustrator Leo Timmers creates a delightful play on the fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare”, which sees the hare driving a racing car.” —The Telegraph, Book of the Year 2020

Franky: “On top of delivering a tender, funny friendship story, Timmers leaves readers with the impression that Sam’s creativity and faith have allowed him to tap into a truth far bigger than himself.”—Publishers Weekly

Bang! “Watching vehicles bash into one another is a perennial rib-tickler for kids, and Timmers exploits this with a marvelously loony series of fender benders… Timmers never skimps, painting with devoted attention every automotive detail and gleam in every chicken’s eye, and providing a plausible cause for every new accident.”— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review