The stories we read as children stay with us all our lives.   Where deserts meet the sea, and your chances of survival are remote, shipwrecks bring terror.  I remember enthralling stories that took me into the mystical world of elephants, learning how they deal with death. Wildlife who survive the scorching heat of deserts by day, and avoid the freezing cold of night enthrall us.

It is a sad event if, during their travels, an elephant family chances upon a long dead friend. They may spend several hours caressing, feeling, and smelling the bones, now bleached by the African sun.  Sometimes, they pick up the bones and carry them away, to disperse them into different places. What memories do  they store away about their lost companion? What stories stay with those elephants, as they “read” the bones?

Our story Tahj and the Dragon’s Gold is set against a background of shipwrecks [Read more…] about Deserts, Shipwrecks, and Elephant Stories Enthrall Our Children.