The polite elephant is enormous, which is the joke. He waits his turn for the bus. He passes the salt without being asked. He helps, he greets, he holds the door, and he does all of it at a scale that makes good behavior look impressive rather than fussy. A small child watching a very large animal be careful learns something a scolding cannot teach.

Scarry first drew this in 1963 and it has outlived nearly everything published beside it. The artwork is his early style at full strength: warm, witty, densely populated, with the rabbit friend stealing scenes in the background and a top hat that produces a surprise. Twenty four pages, and every one of them has something to point at.

Reissued as a Little Golden Book Classic with the gold foil spine and the sturdy cardboard covers. This is the manners book that gets requested again at bedtime, which is more than most manners books manage.