Emily Brown and the Elephant Emergency

by
Cressida Cowell
Illustrator: Neal Layton

Emily and Stanley have entertained young readers with earlier adventures, and in their latest, they steadfastly refute their toy elephant friend Matilda's mummy's concerns about whether they are playing safely.

Eventually the tables are turned as they rescue Matilda’s mummy from her boring work, and take her on their next adventure.

Acutely aware of the way in which her young readers play, Nestlé-award winner Brown seamlessly mixes reality and imagination in her story, while Layton’s illustrations perfectly represent this fusion.

Different types represent different settings, with the conversations on the emergency telephone in spiky upper-case, and Emily’s calm responses in normal print. Each spread is lively, colourful, and full of detail for readers to share, reflecting and enhancing the text.

Publisher: Orchard Books

Cressida Cowell

Cressida Cowell grew up in London and on a small, uninhabited island off the
west coast of Scotland. The name of the island is a secret, but it was such a small island it wasn’t really big enough to have a name at all. There were no roads or shops or electricity on the island, just one house and a storm-blown wilderness of sea-birds and heather.
When Cressida wasn’t on the island, she was going to school at Marlborough College in Wiltshire where she met and became close friends with Lauren Child, a fellow author/illustrator and the creator of TV’s Charlie and Lola. Cressida and Lauren remain close friends. Indeed Lauren is godmother to Cressida’s daughter Clemmie.
After school, Cressida obtained a BA in English Literature from Oxford University, a BA in Graphic Design from St Martin’s and an MA in Narrative Illustration from Brighton.
Cressida wrote and illustrated her first picture book, Little Bo Peep’s Library Book for Hodder Children’s Books in 1998. Her first novel for eight to twelve year olds, How to Train Your Dragon, was published to popular and critical acclaim in 2003. ‘The next big thing in children’s literature,’ wrote the Independent on Sunday. ‘Irresistibly funny, exciting and endearing,’ said The Times.

How to Train Your Dragon has now been published in over thirty languages. Film rights of How to Train Your Dragon were sold to DreamWorks Animation in 2003 for a substantial sum and the filmed version was released into cinemas in March 2010.

Cressida Cowell