Science textbook with a nuclear-powered elephant

Question 1

This is a book I read many years ago when I was still a kid. I think it was a science textbook of some kind, but I'm not sure.

From what I remember, it had a story in it of some kind of big nuclear power station that was shaped like a giant elephant (or a horse) that created steam to heat a nearby city over the winter. And I think there was a big cross-section diagram of the "elephant."

Do you guys have any idea what book this might have been in?

Question 2

This is almost certainlyThe Way Things Work by David Macaulay. It's a mammoth statue.

The Way Things Work is a 1988 nonfiction book by David Macaulay with technical text by Neil Ardley. It is a whimsical introduction to everyday machines and the scientific principles behind their operation, describing machines as simple as levers and gears and as complicated as radio telescopes and automatic transmissions. Every page consists primarily of one or more large diagrams describing the operation of the relevant machine. These diagrams are informative but playful, in that most show the machines operated, used upon, or represented by woolly mammoths, and are accompanied by anecdotes from a mysterious inventor of the mammoths' (fictive) role in the operation....

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It's not really science fiction although arguably it's kind of alternate history.

Question 3

I'm glad I could find it for you. Iloved that book when I was a kid. I may have to find a copy of the updated one.

Question 4

That was really fast! Thanks a lot!

Question 5

A mysterious mammoth-formed nuclear power plant appearing overnight? Surely that’s about as science-fictional as you get! The unusual aspect is theform — overall it’s a sort of children’s encyclopedia with fictional embellishments, not a novel or short story or other standard fictional form — but I don’t see how the fictional parts wouldn’t be counted as science fiction.

Question 6

@PLL - You're right that it has SF elements, and I'd argue it's on topic here. But theoverall focus of the book is non-fiction pedagogy--one step beyond the "fiction" of word problems in a mathematics textbook.

FuzzyBoots 258k24 gold badges771 silver badges1.2k bronze badges · Accepted Answer · 2025-12-14 22:50:54Z

This is almost certainlyThe Way Things Work by David Macaulay. It's a mammoth statue.

The Way Things Work is a 1988 nonfiction book by David Macaulay with technical text by Neil Ardley. It is a whimsical introduction to everyday machines and the scientific principles behind their operation, describing machines as simple as levers and gears and as complicated as radio telescopes and automatic transmissions. Every page consists primarily of one or more large diagrams describing the operation of the relevant machine. These diagrams are informative but playful, in that most show the machines operated, used upon, or represented by woolly mammoths, and are accompanied by anecdotes from a mysterious inventor of the mammoths' (fictive) role in the operation....

_{Click to embiggen}

It's not really science fiction although arguably it's kind of alternate history.

I'm glad I could find it for you. Iloved that book when I was a kid. I may have to find a copy of the updated one.
A mysterious mammoth-formed nuclear power plant appearing overnight? Surely that’s about as science-fictional as you get! The unusual aspect is theform — overall it’s a sort of children’s encyclopedia with fictional embellishments, not a novel or short story or other standard fictional form — but I don’t see how the fictional parts wouldn’t be counted as science fiction.
@PLL - You're right that it has SF elements, and I'd argue it's on topic here. But theoverall focus of the book is non-fiction pedagogy--one step beyond the "fiction" of word problems in a mathematics textbook.

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