DiCamillo’s newest novel is enticingly mysterious and magical. We first meet Peter, a boy orphaned at a young age and left in the care of a strict and sometimes irrational soldier, Vilna Lutz. While wondering through the marketplace one day, he spends the single coin (given to him to purchase food) on seeing a fortuneteller instead. Can he believe what he learns from her? That his sister is not dead, as Vilna Lutz told him? That she lives, and an elephant, of all things, will lead him to her? Peter desperately wants to believe his little sister is alive, but there are no elephants in Baltese. Miraculously, the same day, a tired magician, whose magic has always been mediocre, somehow summons an elephant from thin air. It literally falls from the sky. A series of strange incidents and coincidences follow, bringing a group of people together in the oddest of circumstances. Kate DiCamillo, author of other magical stories such as The Tale of Despereaux and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, weaves another compelling tale of loss, lonliness, searching, desire, and finally love and belonging