John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887)

"It was six men of Indostan / To learning much inclined, / Who went to see the Elephant / (Though all of them were blind), / That each by observation / Might satisfy his mind." So begins 19th-century American poet John Godfrey Saxe's retelling, in verse, of a classic Indian folktale, which is paired in this picture book with illustrations from Paul Galdone. As each man feels a different part of the elephant, he concludes that the elephant is like everything from a rope to a tree to a wall, teaching a wise lesson about perception, and about its limitations...

The poem in The Blind Men and the Elephant was originally published in 1865, in Saxe's collections, Clever Stories of Many Nations, in which he retold twenty traditional tales from around the world in rhyming verse. It was made into a picture book in 1963, in this title with artwork by Paul Galdone, and then again in 1964 in Lorna Balian's An Elephant?, which contains a somewhat revised version of the poem. The story itself has also been retold a number of times, most notably in author/illustrator Ed Young's Caldecott Honor-winning Seven Blind Mice (in which the blind men are turned into mice), in Lilian Quigley and Janice Holland's The Blind Men and the Elephant, and in a number of other titles. Leaving all of that aside, this was an enjoyable book, with a rhyming text that reads well aloud, and that ably captures the story it is retelling, and appealing vintage artwork from Galdone. I thought the elephant and his rider, in particular, were well done, with their various expressions skillfully depicted. Recommended to young folklore enthusiasts, to Paul Galdone fans, and to any picture book readers who enjoy rhyming tales.… (more)