Get all trumped up with the real elephant in the room, Donald Trunk
The Donald Trunk book launch at Jetwing Lighthouse on Wednesday January 24 at tea time promises to be an extraordinary event with a cake by chef Nihal that lives up to the size and character of Trunk himself, a fun theatrical book reading and many other treasures and treats.
Join Donald Trunk by emailing mortanne@gmail.com and be a part of a drama- packed afternoon that will not only launch this stunningly illustrated book with an exhibition that is part of The Galle Art Trail, but will also be the perfect hors d’oeuvre for the opening of the Fairway Galle Literary Festival.
On first looking at the Donald Trunk book cover, one would think this children’s book was intended to include a bit of political satire. However, the author is cleverer than that; the name simply draws you into thinking you might get an entertaining book for children that doubles as an amusing read for adults. Well, it is both of the latter but in completely different ways, which open up a new genre of writing that takes us back to a time when the world was full of mystery, excitement and endless possibilities for fascinating travel experiences and stories that are educational, fun, colourful, contain an element of the forbidden and draw us into the world of the imagination.
The seed of the idea, brought about by two news stories of elephants swimming many miles off the Sri Lankan coastline, lay buried in ‘fertile soil’ for some time before a trip to a chateau in the south of France yielded up a gift in the form of Janet Anderton, to bring the story to life in paintings. A single scene was selected and the very next day the book’s fate was sealed with that same scene being used for the story, advertising and promotion and in parts for the master slide of the book’s textual pages. Janet captures, in bold and colourful strokes of watercolours, the character and spirit of Donald and the many emotions he goes through as he navigates his way from being a work elephant to freedom and life in the sea in pursuit of ‘impossible’ dreams. We see him warmly cuddled up in cinnamon shavings, dutifully following dad, being comforted by his beautiful mum and then having fun at the kade, with his butterfly fairy godmother and his contemporary, Ashok, in exquisite Perahera costumes just prior to the great escape.
The painting of his capture by the Navy is both hilarious and heart-breaking; it is so full of character as is the depiction of him looking out to the horizon above the sea at the great whale while dreaming of far flung foreign lands.
The stories give a fascinating insight into the character and customs of this amazing country, with thousands of miles of sea in every direction but the north. On closer inspection of the geography of the region and where Donald might swim to, the author found the perfect destination for Donald’s first adventure, the truly exotic Nicobar Islands of which Great Nicobar seemed the most appropriate with its natural biosphere reserve amongst a little known tropical paradise surrounded by islands and hundreds of miles of golden sandy beaches and warm coral reefs.
As well as educating its readers about the island of Sri Lanka, the book describes many fascinating facts about one of its oldest and most valuable cash crops, cinnamon. Cinnamon is known to have many medicinal benefits and other uses such as a healthy replacement for sugar. Some of these are described in the book, as Donald suffers many ailments along the way, which it can help with.
So, the book covers a hugely diverse range of worldly interests, acting both as a great vehicle to promote children’s understanding of the planet and their environment, while also engaging them with a bit of magic and adventure through the eyes of one of the most revered animals in Sri Lanka - the elephant.
Donald Trunk has been sponsored by Jetwing Hotels.