When the Elephants Dance : A Novel

In the waning days of World War II, the Filipino people were caught between a brutal Japanese occupation and battling U.S. forces. In this compelling, incandescent novel, thirteen-year-old Alejandro Karangalan, his spirited older sister Isabelle, and Domingo, a passionate guerilla commander, narrate the story of the Karangalans-a family who huddle with their neighbors in the cellar of a house near Manila to wait out the war. In their crowded refuge, the group shares magical stories of Filipino myth and legend. Spellbinding, with a dazzling array of ghosts, witches, supernatural creatures, and courageous Filipinos from history, these tales transport the listeners and give them new resolve to survive.

Tess Uriza Holthe grew up in a Filipino American family in San Francisco. When the Elephants Dance is inspired, in part, by the experiences of her father, who was a young boy in the Philippines during World War II.