Children's ✦ Penny’s Take
Elephant Tears
Richard Trout · 2006
67/100
👎 Skip It
A family of adventurers taking on wildlife-trafficking cartels in East Africa is exactly the kind of wholesome, high-stakes fun middle-grade readers eat up, and it helps a lot that author Richard Trout is a real environmental biologist who does his homework — this series has real award recognition to back it up. I'd just flag that the criminal-cartel plot brings genuine action peril, and I couldn't verify the scene-by-scene content beyond the general premise.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety68
Substance / usefulness66
Craft & writing64
Originality60
Evidence & accuracy66
Hype vs delivers55
Age-fit65
Human-eye read60
Penny’s verdict67
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