The White Elephant

In nineteenth-century Siam, a white elephant is the king's sacred property — to own one is to hold divine favor, to lose one is catastrophe. Run-Run is the young mahout assigned to escort a newly gifted white elephant from the northern jungle to the royal palace in Bangkok, a journey that passes through teak forests, river crossings, and provincial courts where everyone wants to intercept such a valuable animal. Fleischman grounds his adventure in specific Thai royal custom: the ceremonies around white elephants, the hierarchy of court animals, the particular geography of the river road south to the capital.