Papa Tembo [Hardcover]

Campbell (The Shark Callers; The Place of Lions) sets this slow-going safari adventure on the African plains, pitting human intelligence against the primordial wisdom of an ancient elephant. The memory of the massacre of Papa Tembo's herd nearly 50 years ago haunts "the father of elephants," as well as 70-year-old Laurens van der Wel, the poacher whom Papa Tembo nearly trampled during his narrow escape. Now reduced to a crippled man whose "spirit was as hideously twisted as his leg," Laurens is a cardboard version of Melville's legendary sea captain; while Laurens, like Ahab, seeks revenge against the source of his physical pain and mental anguish, he lacks the awe for his enemy that gives the whale-obsessed villain his dimension. In charting the course of Lauren's hunt for the elusive elephant, Campbell plants obstacles in his path, namely the Blake family, researchers trailing Papa Tembo's new herd; and Hyram T. Johnson, an American concerned with protecting endangered species. Readers may glean some interesting details about animal behavior and African folklore, but it's a long wait to the final showdown between man and beast. Not surprisingly, the elephants are more humane than the humans. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Grade 8 Up-Three human dramas and one animal saga are skillfully paralleled in this ecological adventure set in Tanzania, primarily on the Serengeti. A Moby Dick-like narrative describes a hunter who was maimed by an elephant long ago and has spent his life hunting, exterminating, and poaching elephants to fulfill his insatiable need for revenge. A safari leader, his driver, and an American tourist (all introduced in The Place of Lions [Harcourt, 1995]) attempt to track the vengeful poacher before he destroys more animals. A British father and his two adolescent children study an elephant herd and grapple with the professional and emotional issues of scientific research. In addition to describing the members of this herd, the book also follows Papa Tembo, the elephant responsible for the poacher's injury. This great creature is personified with rich explanations of its thought processes and is given an almost spiritual nature. As the novel moves to its inevitably violent conclusion, the four story lines occasionally intersect in ways that are touching and thought-provoking. Each thread provides a different moral perspective, but occasionally ethical lines are blurred and questions are raised. The introduction of a truly venomous human villain expands on the man vs. animal survival adventure to include issues of personal responsibility and redemption. Vividly written and conscientious, this tale weaves together the beauty and danger of the physical landscape with the intriguing psychological landscapes of humans and elephants.
Kate Foldy, Northern Kentucky Univ., Highland Heights, KY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr 7^-12. In Tanzania he is called "Papa Tembo, the father of elephants." To his enemy, the evil poacher Laurens Van Der Wel, he sometimes seems to be "a phantom who could appear and disappear at will . . . a beast that could not be killed." But now, half a century after their first fateful encounter, the two--bull elephant and man--are destined to meet again in a rendezvous that promises to be fatal to one--or perhaps both. Campbell, who has lived in East Africa in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, writes with great authority about his setting, about elephants, and--with moral outrage added--about those who destroy them illegally for their tusks. The author's considerable gift for storytelling and reporter's eye for arresting detail are occasionally marred by anthropomorphism and prose that is a bit too purple around the edges. But he is wonderfully successful at investing his characters with symbolic weight and at introducing haunting, magical elements into his otherwise realistic narrative. Michael Cart

For half a lifetime the poacher and the elephant have been enemies--since the shattering day when the man massacred the young animal's herd, and paid for his crime with his own blood. Now the poacher is about to wreak his revenge at last; he'll slaughter the mighty elephant that maimed him. As man and beast move toward a final, terrible encounter, only one person can prevent a tragedy: the young girl who loves the elephant more than her own life.

Erik Campbell lives in Papua, Indonesia, working as a technical writer for an American mining company. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous prestigious literary magazines, including The Iowa Review, Tin House, The Massachusetts Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Nimrod, New Delta Review, and Rattle. He has been nominated for a 2005 Pushcart Prize in poetry.