Whispers of a Million Elephants: A love letter to Laos - A Little Yellow Plane Adventure Paperback – August 23, 2023

I liked that the book was part travelogue and part learning about a different culture. I grew up with a community that accepted refugees from Laos and other countries, so to learn more about the country, it's people, food, flora and fauna, etc, was interesting. However, I felt that this info dump hampered the story a little. Maybe kids won't notice that they're learning new information. I liked the story a lot, but not quite a 5-star read.

I received an advanced reader’s copy of Whispers of a Million Elephants: A Love letter to Laos written recently by Jane Thomas.I didn’t realize until I began reading that this is a book for middle school aged children. Nor did I know that this book is the second in a series involving the same characters. I missed this information in the book’s original description. However, since I made a commitment to read the book and provide my opinion, I decided to read the book in its entirety and do just that, provide my honest, VOLUNTARY review.The book is perfect for the age group for which it is intended. It’s a lovely, fun story of 2 children on an adventure in Southeast Asia. It’s easy to read and provides a wonderful education of different cultures, customs and traditions of people on the other side of the world from us, and it imparts important lessons regarding not only the history of Southeast Asia but also America’s involvement there. It also demonstrates the values of friendship, respect and kindnesstowards people and cultures that who are different from those in the Western world. I highly recommend this book for parents, teachers and librarians of middle school age children to give to those children to read.Thank you to Jane Thomas, Books & Bicycles Press, and BookSirens for providing me an advanced reader’s copy of this lovely book. Again, I am leaving this review VOLUNTARILY.

A wonderful homage to Laos, the adventure/mission to return the bars to a family is a wonderful excuse to take us on a journey from the city to "a people" into a different culture and think about the time during the Vietnam War. In the end, the author addresses with an extra chapter the facts behind this story and more details about the war.Educational and lyrical.The covers for all the books in this series are beautiful.I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Whispers of a Million Elephants: A Love Letter to Laos. This book is middle-grade fiction that gives readers some insight into the Hmong, their involvement in the Vietnam War, and how many of them came to be American citizens. There is a large Hmong community where I live so this information was of particular interest to me. Some of the logistical parts of the story were definitely far-fetched, but that's not a bad thing. On the contrary, I think middle-grade readers will really enjoy reading about the two main characters' travel adventures. This was a 5-star read for me because I love it when books teach me something new.I received an advance review copy for free from BookSirens, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.