Any new book from Grill is cause for celebration and once again he has produced a superb work of narrative history for children. Bandoola was a Burmese elephant who, together with the mahout who had gentled him and a British war veteran, led 53 other elephants and 200 refugees to safety in Northern India in 1942. James Howard Williams had worked with elephants as a forester in the Burmese jungle and then with a team of elephants with British Special Forces when they found themselves cornered by the Japanese. Layers of detail and illustrated with pencil drawings as Grill did before with Shackleton’s Journey and The Wolves of Currampaw. Ages 7-12.