Faithful Elephants

Faithful Elephants;  A True Story of Animals, People and War
By Yukio Tsuchiya

Get out a box of Kleenex before you read this one.  I'm serious.  I found it on our library shelf and thought I'd just skim it; I ended up sobbing, right there at school (no one was around, thankfully).
This true story was published not long after the end of World War II (1951), and I can't think of many other books about war that have so moved me.  Zookeepers in a Tokyo zoo are forced to starve their elephants to death because of the war...it's as awful as it sounds.  But the illustrations are beautiful, the anti-war message is resounding, and it's so worth reading--if you can bear it.
(ISBN: 0-395-46555-9)