The author’s note touches on climate change, the illegal ivory trade, and conservation efforts, but the highly emotive framing of the story through the memories of a bewildered baby elephant emphasizes the impact of lines such as “ ‘in Africa,’ I say softly, ‘there were bad people,’ ” without offering readers a nuanced understanding of the broader context that drives poaching. Applegate deftly tempers themes of grief and loss with compassion and humor as Ruby finds her place in the herd. Goofy, playful, and mischievous Ruby is fully dimensional, as she has shown her bravery during the many hardships of her young life. An elephant glossary and Castelao’s charming, illustrated guide to elephant body language help immerse readers in Ruby’s world.

The unexpected arrival of someone from Ruby’s past life on the savanna revives memories both warmly nostalgic and deeply traumatic. Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia. Luckily, she can confide in her Uncle Ivan, who is next door in Gorilla World, and Uncle Bob, the dog who lives nearby with human friend Julia. She’s apprehensive about her Tuskday, a rite of passage for young elephants when she’ll give a speech in front of the rest of the herd. In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary.

With humor as well as depth, this is an endearing story of a spunky girl who realizes that life gets more, not less, confusing as she grows up. Regan’s black-and-white spot illustrations are unexceptional. Realistically drawn, Odessa is a believable, likable kid on the brink of growing up, struggling with family changes. The power Odessa initially feels at having a second chance soon diminishes she realizes she cannot change what really matters. So she has 24 chances to fix things, like the bangs haircut that was a big mistake, farting in front of the boy she like-likes or beating her brother to a $100 bill he finds first. She soon finds that each time she jumps, she loses one hour of the previous day.

What Odessa most wants is to re-hyphenate her family, getting Dad to remarry Mom. In her first book of middle-level fiction, young-adult author Reinhardt ( The Summer I Learned to Fly, 2011, etc.) offers the wistful tale of fourth-grader Odessa Green-Light, who, stomping in anger on the floor of her attic bedroom, discovers a loophole that allows her to travel back in time one day. Now she can fix all kinds of things, especially the de-hyphenation of her family. Odessa Green-Light discovers a loophole in time.

Green gorilla odessa