Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya

“This book shares two important lessons: Don’t take selfies with wild elephants or let fear keep you from your dreams.”

If you had an opportunity to follow your dreams, would you take it? That’s the immediate question faced in Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya. Will author Kim Frank leave her children at home in Idaho to tell the story of Asian elephants in the Himalaya? How can she do so while being a conscientious mother her girls can both rely on and be proud of?

The book begins with Frank becoming a mother, through the adoption of her eldest daughter. She chooses to be a stay-at-home mom after overhearing a caretaker congratulate her daughter on a first that Frank missed while on a work call. Frank relishes motherhood, yet it isn’t enough, isn’t all she wants for herself. She’s enthralled by the glamour of her husband’s friends, several of whom are members of the Explorers Club, intrepid adventurers who travel the world on scientific missions and storytelling expeditions. She feels an overwhelming pull to be one of them.

That is the start of Frank’s adventure. She learns about the plight of wild Asian elephants in the Himalaya. Her interest is piqued by people dying in India to take selfies with wild elephants, to gain attention and self-aggrandizement. She calls it “dying for likes.” Frank partners with a National Geographic photographer, in part to learn how to investigate a story overseas, and in part—perhaps the largest part—because she doesn’t have confidence in herself to go it alone.

More than anything, this book is about how a mother who has committed her life to her children finds the courage also to pursue her own dreams, in this case of writing, storytelling, and international exploration.

Frank stumbles in her investigation, initially perhaps more than she gets it right. It’s Franks’s vulnerability, her willingness to share her foibles, that keep the reader hooked. Frank’s experience is illustrative that a key ingredient to become an explorer is willingness to address fear.

Ultimately, Frank goes to India to learn about what she terms the human/elephant conflict. Her experience is awkward and clumsy as her attention is constantly back on her family in Idaho. She experiences an internal conflict—that her children may not thrive without her, but also will not respect her if she doesn’t follow through on her work. It’s a dilemma that plays out in all sorts of missteps, from wearing the wrong clothes to being warned not to walk at night to a place where she can get internet connection to wish her husband a happy birthday, to keep from being attacked by prowling predators.

In the first half of the book, Frank finds her footing as an explorer and the ability to be present wherever she is—be that at home or in India. This story will be an inspiration to any parent who has dreamed of doing something that will take time from their children, and finding that balance is possible.

The second half of the book is focused on Asian elephants and their conservation.

While Frank goes to India to share the story of people dying to take selfies with Asian elephants, she finds complex issues related to Asian elephant conservation, both with captive elephants and those in the wild. That it’s complicated is an understatement. While keeping elephants for human use is widely vilified, particularly in the West, Frank finds deep connections between captive elephants and their mahouts, though that familial tradition is dying out. That said, the relationship is fraught with challenges. For wild elephants, habitat reduction, the relative caloric value and ease of eating crops, human encroachment into migration routes, misattributions of ownership, lack of compensation for lost crops, and the growing aggressiveness of humans—among only a handful of the most pressing problems they face—might leave the reader hopeless. Is extinction inevitable?

Yet the book is anything but hopeless. Frank finds a deeper connection to self and purpose and makes this story a launching point for her further commitment to Asian elephant conservation. Her sources in India are equally hopeful. It’s not an easily won battle to conserve Asian elephants across the Himalaya, but it is one that is worth fighting.

If you pick up this book with the expectation that you are getting straight reporting on Asian elephant conservation in the Indian Himalaya, you will be disappointed. Frank artfully chooses to center herself in this narrative, to inspire women to exceed the limitations placed on them by society. Yes, show up for your children, but live your life, too. That’s one of the greatest gifts you can give your children, especially as a mother of daughters.

The themes of this book are human/elephant resilience, hopefulness, and dogged commitment to grow into the person you feel you are meant to become.

Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya by Kim Frank is an inspiring book showing that what matters most in exploration, and perhaps in life, is heart. This book shares two important lessons: Don’t take selfies with wild elephants or let fear keep you from your dreams.