The Girl Who Stole An Elephant by Nizrana Farook Review

Hey ForeverBookers, 

How are you all today? I hope you’re well!

I’ve just finished “The Girl Who Stole An Elephant” by Nizrana Farook and I enjoyed it. It’s a middle-grade and I’d say towards the younger end of middle grade so I didn’t absolutely LOVE it but nonetheless it was fine!

3 Stars!

“The Girl Who Stole An Elephant” is an adventure based novel. Our main character, Chaya starts the novel by stealing the Queen’s jewels as a vigilante character. She wants to help a boy pay for his medical expenses. What she doesn’t realise is all the trouble she’ll cause in trying to achieve this goal. She brings two friends with her. One isn’t a friend to begin with. The main setting is the Sri Lankan jungle.

I read “The Girl Who Stole An Elephant” for a few readathons:

Reading Rivalry - A book with a celebration - the King has his annual feast at the beginning of the book. It’s not a focus of the story but it happens! It’s when Chaya, the main character, steals the jewels. 

Believathon 2021 - For the last round of Believathon, hosted by Gavin from How To Train Your Gavin, the prompt, “Read A Book Set In A Faraway Place,” was fulfilled by “The Girl Who Stole An Elephant” because it’s set in rural Sri Lanka.

Always Fully Booked 2021 Reading Challenge - A Book With An Intriguing First Line - “Chaya looked at the bronze spear pointing at her neck.” - This was a very intriguing first line to me!

Always Fully Booked 2021 Reading Challenge - On The Cover Reading Challenge - Something that can fly - there are birds flying on the cover.

Reading Rainbow Challenge - There’s a lot of blue on the cover! I have ONE colour left to find!

Disney Magical Hopathon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3F55Y7bfU8&t=61s - It's A Small World - Read a book with different representation to my own - "The Girl Who Stole An Elephant" is set in India and I'm not Indian.

There is talk of capital punishment of children, and imprisoning children in “The Girl Who Stole An Elephant,” because it’s set in Asia. We see one of our child main characters put in jail so if you’re not okay with that then perhaps don’t read this.

Spoilers Below...

Chaya looked at the bronze spear pointing at her neck.

“Stop right there,” said the guard.

Chaya took a step back and held up her hands.”

We’re thrust right into the action on page 1 of “The Girl Who Stole An Elephant,” when our main character, Chaya steals the jewels of the Queen to help save the leg of Vijay, a boy she knows who almost lost it to a crocodile. The Queen is never an actual character in the book. She’s just referred to. Her presence is never seen. This, I felt was a shame, as we could have had more action towards the end of the book if she had come into the story. 

In stealing the jewels, Chaya has committed an offence. If she’s caught she’ll be put in jail and killed. She therefore needs to hide the jewels. She immediately goes to her best friend Neel, who doesn’t have very much money himself. 

“Wait a minute, someone saw you?”

“Calm down, Neel. I ran away. I’m safe.”

“Calm down. This isn’t like stealing a few coins here and there. This is the King we’re talking about.”

“Queen, actually,” Neel glared at her so she quickly carried on. “Don’t you want Vijay to get better? If he’s not treated he’ll lose his leg. He’ll never walk again. And anyway, there’s someone else who could use some of it too.”

“Who?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Your parents could have the money so you don’t have to work. You’re thirteen, Neel. You should come back to school.”

This is Neel’s reaction to Chaya taking the jewels. She says that he could use some of the money from the jewels too. He shouldn’t have to work at thirteen years old! He should be in school, like Chaya.

They hide the jewels in a box that Neel, a carpenters apprentice made. Of course, this box is bought by a young girl, Nour a few pages later! Nour is a rather spoilt brat, Chaya thinks at first. Can they become friends? You’ll need to read to find out!

From there, our three main characters go on an adventure to save the jewels, each other, because Neel is put in jail by the incredibly mean King. Of course, Chaya gets him out! The trio have to trek through the jungle to escape, though. They realise they need each other more than ever before. Can they escape? There’s a twist at the end of the story that I didn’t see coming too, which surprised me for a lower level middle grade.

If I have one big complaint about this story, it’s that our elephant character, Ananda is hardly present, and the book is called “The Girl Who Stole An Elephant,” so I thought this was a shame. It would have been better if Ananda had a bigger role and not just as a minimal side character. The idea of friendship was discussed a lot, however so this was positive. I enjoyed the book for what it was but it was quite forgettable. I don’t think it will necessarily stay with me for long. That’s why I’m giving it an average 3 stars!