The Cowboy And His Elephant Analysis

The Cowboy and His Elephant: The Story Of a Remarkable Friendship was written bye Malcolm MacPherson, and was published in 2001. The story begins by describing what a cull is and that the lone survivor of the cull is called "The Storyteller". The first chapter is not accurate as nothing is known of what happened to the elephant until the point of the cull. It simply describes basic behaviors of other elephants in the same region. Later in the first chapter the cull begins, which is the slaughter of an entire group of elephants, however, one man had made a promise to save one elephant from a cull. Save he did, he saved the newborn elephant. Later that week that baby and five others were to be shipped to the United States, Buck Devries, the
I disliked that the introduction of the book was dragged on and on. The first two chapters were seventy- five of the 240 pages of the book. I understand they have to introduce a story but, I believe that guessing what happened to the baby elephant weeks before the story began is a little too much detail, that is unnecessary. I also dislike how they guess emotions of Amy during the entire story, even though the emotions are just to add humor or sadness to the story. However I like that the book describes Bob's past before he meets Amy(pgs. 37-74). This is important because we learn that Bob likes to do the unexpected, and that he really loves animals. I also like that Bob was able to return to his cowboy ways after his days as the famous Marlboro man. I like that this book isn't just facts about elephants, or facts about Bob, they mixed facts in to a storyline. I also like how the storyline isn't straightforward but that it is mysterious at times. I did enjoy that Malcolm MacPherson, the author, didn't stop when Bob visited Amy in the circus. When it stated that Amy did remember Bob(pg. 210). I like that the book also introduces more elephants other than those in the circus and Amy's family. The book also introduces Randall Moore, a self trained and observed African elephant trainer, and then was challenged to train three wild African elephants(pgs. 216-217). Randall Moore successfully trained these wild elephants, and then started