“Had she seen the giraffe or hadn’t she? Could it have been a trick of the light?” Martine wondered this during a storm when she looked out the window. Martine cried a lot at night ever since she had moved to Africa.
The author of The White Giraffe is Lauren St. John. This story is about a girl named Martine, whose parents died in a fire on her eleventh birthday in England. Her only living relative was her grandma, who lived in Africa. When Martine arrives, she hears about the legends of the White Giraffe. They say that no one has ever seen the animal, but it leaves footprints behind. Even her grandmother says that is a legend. But one night while it was storming, Martine looked out her window, and thought she saw a tall, silvery creature near the watering hole. A split second later the sky goes dark and it’s gone. Had she seen it? Is it really a white giraffe?
I would definitely recommend this book because of the voice the author uses to tell the story. The voice in this story gives a lot of emotion, and by having that emotion, more details came out and I could picture the story better. I really enjoyed how the emotion affects the story because it made the characters more realistic and more believable.

There is a narrator in the story and they are emotional and really describes the characters and the setting to the audience very well. This helped me have a better picture in my mind of what's happening and how the characters and animals looked like.
Inside this story, the author sets up the book very well and organized. It is easy to follow the book and to understand what is going on. The characters are realistic and are described well in the story. I thought that the characters were relatable, which helped contribute to the mood in the story. The author describes a character in the story named Grace very well. “Martine turned around to see one of the fattest women she had ever encountered waddling toward her across the threadbare lawn. She was wearing a traditional African dress in the most brilliant colors, with matching headscarf of banana yellow, Kalahari red, and lime green.” ( St. John 26) I thought that the author described her very well and the descriptions that the author used made me able to picture her very well. The book also has a good ending that won’t be upsetting to the reader. It was satisfying and there wasn’t a cliffhanger ending, making you need to read the next book in the series.
This book is aimed for middle school students because of the word choice the author uses. Some of these words might be hard for the reader that is younger than a middle school student to follow or understand. Some of these words might come out confusing to them and they might not understand what the author is trying to say.
I would recommend this book for animal lovers and people who would like an adventurous story on the African Safari. It is a heartwarming story of a girl who will do everything and anything for the life of her new best friend.