Over the course of her long and illustrious career, author Kate DiCamillo has written countless books for children and young adults. The Magician's Elephant is one of the author's more popular works and tells the story of a troubled but intelligent boy named Peter Augustus Duchene. Peter, like most kids in his situation would, has long questioned whether his sister is alive or dead. To find an answer to his question, Peter goes to a fortune teller, who tells him to look out for an elephant (elephants are a powerful symbol and animal in Hinduism). After a fantastical journey, Peter finds an unexpected answer to his question and finds out more than he bargains for otherwise.
Ultimately, most good children’s books tell fun stories that have an important message. The Magician's Elephant is no exception. In an interview with the outlet NPR, DiCamillo said that "I think that children, being human beings, are as preoccupied with those big things as we are as adults, and I do think it does them a huge disservice to assume that they are living in a world different from the one that we live in." In other words, DiCamillo trusts her young audience to deal with complex themes and issues in her novels. She knows that they are, in the end, human and have a universal understanding of what it means to be human and some of the issues humans may run into. After all, kids are smarter and more perceptive than they look and would seem.
The "cataclysmic" event that occurs in The Magician's Elephant is inspired by a similarly disruptive event in DiCamillo's own life. In that way, she was able to write the pain and hurt Peter experienced from a knowing place.
