Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya Jason Lei

Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya, takes place in the Ueno Zoo in Japan while Japan was in war. The book is about how the Ueno Zoo had to kill all the animals in the zoo because they were ordered to do so by the Japanese Government because if a bomb were to ever hit the zoo the animals might be a possible threat to the people of Tokyo. In the book we learn that we have to make sacrifices in life.

One of the sacrifices they made in the book was that they had to kill the animals in the zoo. This was a big sacrifice because the employees and trainers worked with the animals everyday and they grew a bond with the animals in the Ueno Zoo. They grew such a strong bond with the animals that they even thought about send the animals to another zoo in Japan but they weren't sure if bombs were going to drop there either. This shows that they really didn't want the animals dead.

Another sacrifice they made in the book was that they had to kill John the elephant. John was one of the employee's and trainer's favorite and so were the other elephants Tonky and Wanly who also had to die. John was the first of the three elephants to die. He was also a very smart elephant and they had to try a couple of times trying to kill him. The first attempt of killing John was was mixing poisonous potatoes in the his potatoes but John threw the poisonous ones out. The second attempt  was trying to inject poison into him but his tough skin snapped the needle in half. The last and final attempt was starving  john to death. This worked and became the solution method of killing the elephants. Even though the trainers had to kill John they felt terrible. They treated the elephants like their own like their child and they had to watch it die.

The last major scafrice they mad was killing the last. To elephants Tonky and Wanly. They were starved to death just like John because it was the only method they tried that worked. Killing the last two elephants was really hard on the trainers because they were the last animals in the zoo. The trainers and employees also had to watch them slowly die everyday. The trainer and employees felt terrible that when Tonky and Wanly did their Banzai trick it broke the trainers heart that he ran to get them food and water. This shows that he loved them. Another wayit shows that the trainer loved the elephants was how before the elephants were dying he held them tight and watch as their eyes went as white as ever.

In conclusion, Faithful Elephants doesn't only teach us that we have to make sacrifices in life but it teaches us that some sacrifice aren't supposed to be made and should be made because they are wrong and stupid.