Day of the Elephants


Christian - Non-Fiction
104 Pages
Reviewed on 02/24/2014
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Author Biography

Ron Swager is a Tucson businessman and entrepreneur. He has written many business and marketing plans, and training manuals but this book is his first published literary work. He knew immediately upon meeting Roland Deah that this story must be recorded and he began writing the story line’s series of incidents the very next day. Ron has resided in Tucson since 1978. He lives with his wife Wendy and four dogs.
Ed Chinn is a well-established writer, wrote Footprints in the Sea, and has been published in The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and many other newspapers, magazines, and websites. In 2006, Ed was nominated for “best religion writer” in America by the American Academy of Religion. Ed has more than 20 years of pastoral and consulting experience within a wide landscape of American churches and Christian organizations. Ed and his wife, Joanne, live in middle Tennessee.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Katelyn Hensel for Readers' Favorite

Day of the Elephants by Ron Swager and Ed Chinn is the true story of one man's escape from Liberia and the life that he found in America. We don't often see the harsh and ugly truth of what can happen in the world, what people can really do to devastate one another. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, a warlord turned president initiated a campaign of terror that would forever change the people he reigned over. Through the eyes of one refugee, Roland Deah, we see tragedy unfolding that is unlike any we would wish on our worst enemies, and you also see such hope, freedom, and life in that same refugee. An inspirational, exciting, and even infuriating story, this one is a book for your keeper shelf.

A truly inspirational story, Day of the Elephants makes you stop in your busy, First World day, and really look around and appreciate what you have. Frustrations at lukewarm coffee and encroaching deadlines drop away when you think about one man and his struggle just to stay alive. This story brings to mind the concept of learning history so that it can't repeat itself. So many terrorists, dictators etc have just been lost in the mists of time. Such devious and treacherous acts forgotten. People don't want to face such brutality, and if it is swept under the rug, we don't have to deal with it. However, people are shocked to their cores when such terror emerges again and we ask, "Why did this happen?" or "Why didn't we know?" We need books like Day of the Elephants to show us what struggles there are in the world, to show us that there is a resounding fire of goodness for every shock of evil in the world. Ron Swager and Ed Chinn were lucky to have met a man like Roland Deah, and I feel lucky to have been given the chance to read about him.