Quick summary: A young boy seeks answers when a fortune teller comes to town. She tells him he must follow the elephant to find his sister. The boy thinks she can’t be right – there are no elephants in his town. And then a magician makes one appear…

My thoughts: I read The Tale of Despereaux in late 2008 and hated it. Absolutely loathed it. I felt bad for that, because it won so many awards and everyone else seemed to like it, but it just didn’t work for me. I’ve been scared to try any of DiCamillo’s other books, but Chris convinced me to try The Magician’s Elephant (helped along by the fact that I love elephants to pieces). I’m so glad I did because this was a marvelous book! Funny thing is, the writing is very similar to that in Despereaux, minus the annoying, condescending asides to the reader which bothered me so much. For some reason, it worked in this setting, when it didn’t in Despereaux (for me, anyway). DiCamillo threw all the pieces to the puzzle out and then gathered them together bit by bit. I loved every single character, and I loved how everything worked out. So yay for second chances! So far this 2nds challenge has been amazing!