Author O’Connell is an elephant expert.  She is an assistant professor at Stanford, has won awards for other elephant books, and has spent the last 20 years of her career studying elephants.  The strength of this book is it’s photographs, which were taken by the author and her husband, Timothy Rodwell, while in Namibia, Africa.  The technology in today’s photographic equipment allows the finest of details to be seen in the beautiful photos in this book.  One shot shows 19 elephants ranging in all sizes.  The comparison is remarkable.  The shots of the newborns show their hairiness and vulnerability.  The accompanying text is simple and not distracting, and tells the reader what they are looking at.  This is a beautiful book and would be terrific addition to any school library.