an elephant in the garden inspired by a true story

On their journey to safety, they meet Peter, a young Canadian navigator who's been shot down and is being pursued by German police. Knowing that the Russians are closing in on Germany from the East and the Allies from the West, the family decides to take its chances with the Americans and the British forces by heading west. They are joined on the roads by thousands of other bewildered civilian refugees, who have seen their city turned into ashes. When Dresden is fire bombed by a savage Allied air raid attack, Elizabeth takes to the roads along with Mutti (her mother), her little brother, Karli, and their beloved, gentle, and wise four-year old elephant, Marlene, named after movie star idol Marlene Dietrich. Her mother worked at the zoo there, and sought permission from authorities to bring a lonely orphaned elephant to stay with them each night, walking her to and from the zoo each day from the garden outside their home. When Karl and his mother sit down to listen, Lizzie spins the extraordinary saga of her life as a young girl in Dresden, at the time of World War II. He's the only one who takes seriously an elderly woman named Lizzie (Elizabeth) when she tells him about Marlene, the elephant that lived in her garden. Inspired by historical truth and the author's self-professed love of elephants, this novel tells a story within a story a young boy named Karl visits his mother at the nursing home where she works in present day England. (October 2011) is another moving story of a family and an animal in wartime, this time set during the Second World War and involving a somewhat more unusual animal-an elephant. His most recent book to be published in the U.S. British author Michael Morpurgo, who's written more than 100 books for young people, is currently in the limelight as the author of War Horse, the World War I novel on which the current Steven Spielberg film and hit play are based.

An elephant in the garden inspired by a true story