Akimbo and the Elephants by Alexander McCall Smith

In our Library there is a section called "intermediate." This section contains very short simple novels for children that are transitioning from picture book to chapter book reading. Many of the books in this section are in one of two genre, either humorous fiction, (e.g. Junie B. Jones) or Fantasy, (e.g. The Fairy School series). But what if there is a child, probably a boy, or maybe a girl, who doesn't want humor or fantasy? The Akimbo series is a great choice for that kind of kid. Akimbo is the son of a game warden at a wild life reserve in Africa. In this book he finds an elephant that has been butchered by poachers and decides to bring the culprits to justice. Using wit and courage he figures out who the poachers are, and then leads the Rangers to them before they can kill another elephant. As I read the book I admired the way that the author was able to tell the story with very simple vocabulary and sentence structure, without sounding simplified or stilted.(68 p)