When I was about 6 years old and living in Japan, I went on an outing to the zoo with people from my church. We lived far outside of Tokyo, up in the mountains and there were few foreigners in that area and even fewer foreign children. The zoo was quite advanced for its time, with many of the animals in larger natural enclosures.  Naturally, the elephant exhibit was quite popular and all the Japanese kids and I got up on the steps right next to the fence to look at them. Suddenly one of the elephants stopped right in front of me and reached out its trunk over the fence and grabbed ahold of my blond hair!  The kids around me screamed and ran away, but I was caught by my hair and couldn’t really move. The elephant woofed with its trunk as though considering what this yellow stuff was, let go and then took another trunkful and woofed again and let go.  This time I was able to back away and by then the zoo keepers were in the exhibit moving the elephant to the back of the enclosure out of reach of my hair and others were trying to make sure that I was OK and apologizing to my parents for what had happened.  They kept saying over and over, “The elephant thought it was straw, it thought your hair was straw!”

So given that experience, when I realized that Leaving Time is a story that revolves around a daughter trying to find her mother who happens to be an elephant researcher(!), I was totally intrigued!

Jenna’s mother, Alice, disappeared after a tragic accident at the elephant preserve where she was doing research on elephant grief behaviors.  Jenna was only 3 at the time of the incident but now at 14 she decides that she wants to find her mother and find out what really happened.  Jenna’s father had a psychological breakdown after the incident and has remained in an institution ever since and Jenna’s grandmother, who has taken care of her since that time never wants to talk about it. So on her own, Jenna begins to try and piece together what happened. To help her in this task she finds two unlikely people, the detective who failed to solve the case all those years ago and a once famous but now washed up psychic, who, albeit reluctantly, begin to help Jenna find the answers she needs.

The story is told from the perspective of these four characters, Jenna, the psychic, the detective and Alice’s journals about her work with the elephants. Picoult masterfully develops each character, especially Jenna, who is sharp, sassy and vulnerable all at once-just like a teenager.  Through Alice’s journals we learn the back story of what happened before the terrible accident when she disappeared. We also get an up close view of the elephants and begin to see, like Alice, each elephant with their own personalities and responses to loss. These portions about elephant behavior are not gratuitous, but rather move the story along,  showing Alice’s perspective towards loss and grief, as well as giving us some sense of the personalities and relationships she fostered with the elephants she observed and worked with.

Beautiful and tender, this is a powerful book about the bond between mothers and daughters and the sustaining power of love even in the face of loss.

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 Stars out of 5)  

Recommend this book to: Keith, Sharon, Marian and Lauren

Book Study Worthy? Yes

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