The Mighty Tusks
by Erik Daniel SheinPublish: Jun 01, 2020Teen & Young AdultBook Overview
A compelling journey into the minds of the animals of the African rainforest and their fight to survive.In THE MIGHTY TUSKS, a novel imagined entirely from the perspective of the animals of the African rainforest, Erik Daniel Shein and Melissa Davis create a world that mirrors our own.
A war has raged for centuries in the African rainforest. Animals living in factions band together for a greater cause. Once a place of peace ruled by a great tusker king, the rainforest now lies in shadows as the ghosts of the obambo fight for dominance. The story is older than time, but a glimmer of hope shines on the horizon. Change is in the wind, and the world is ready for it.
Dakarai, a young African forest elephant, has grown up on the stories of his father, the great tusker king, Ajamu. It is not only his birthright to follow in his father’s footsteps, but also his greatest desire. Hidden and sheltered from the ongoing war, Dakarai finds himself unprepared when the time comes to join.
With their very existence at stake, Dakarai must master his abilities and self-doubts to face the greatest evil in the jungle. If he doesn’t prevail, all is lost.
The language, social structure, intellectual, and spiritual world of elephants and the other animals of the rainforest are as real as the fabric of human life. In THE MIGHTY TUSKS, Erik Daniel Shein, a zoologist, and Melissa Davis, an educator, plunge the readers into an alien landscape, an extremely distinct, invented world, with its own social and linguistic structures, and its own myths and totems. Readers orient themselves into the animal’s consciousness and begin to feel what it would be like to be that imperiled. Readers will never think the same of elephants and their resilience.
