Elmer helps Rose, a lost elephant, find her way back to her herd. Rose is not a patchwork of colors or patterns like the elephants in Elmer’s herd; she is solid pink, as is her entire herd. Although Elmer and Rose both think that elephants in colors different from their own look a little strange, they learn that being unique is about more than the color of one’s skin. Books that celebrate diversity are important for children at all age levels, and McKee offers one here that is playful in the way it approaches the subject, avoiding heavy-handed didacticism. David McKee won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1987. lvb

Originally published by Ander sen Press Great Britain, in 2005.