George Cipolletti

Once Upon an Elephant George Cipolletti

'Once Upon an Elephant' began as an idea in 1956. I played around with the story until I came up with an unlikely hero, a pretty princess, a scoundrel and an elephant. It is a story that is told in easy rhyming form that kids seem to love. It is a story about an unlikely hero who is not accepted in the regular circle of knights because he is a little too chubby. It is filled with 32 pages of wonderful graphics by Suzanne that certainly add to the book's basc concept. It's the same concept that I used in my days as a free lance cartoonist. I would make up scenarios and then would come up with the finished cartoon. The difference, this time, was that I was thinking of a story line for my children since they loved the stories that I made up for them at bedtime. The story became side tracked as I began working as a teacher in the Wayne NJ schools system. In 1957, I found the story in my files and decided to re-write the story in rhyme. I worked it out and put it out of my mind until I drew up the complete story in book form for my daughter Janet in 1970. She loved the it and, afterwards, was again put aside until recently .. ... . My son Robert found the old booklet and I put it on the computer, cleaned up the drawings and made up books for each of my two young grand children and two great grandchildren as Christmas gifts. I didn't give it much thought until I saw that they all liked the story and I was encouraged to try for publication. That's when my grand daughter Suzanne came to my rescue and said she would love to collaborate with me on the book and illustrate the story. How could I refuse? Suzanne is an accomplished artist with a BFA degree and works as an animator for United Space Alliance doing animations for the Kennedy Space Center. After a few meetings, we agreed on the format and put the story together in a style that pleased us both and this is what turned out. We hope that everyone enjoys the story as much as we do.