In Small as an Elephant, a realistic fiction novel by Jennifer Richard Jacobson, there are many minor themes, or messages in a piece of literature. However, the main theme is to always find the positive side of a situation, in this case, Jack’s mom gone missing. This is the major theme superior to the other small ones because throughout the book, the eleven-year-old boy had kept his head up in the hardest times in his journey. An example is the book states ‘“Concentrate’ he told himself. Just because people were looking for him did not mean he would be found. He just had to think” (Jacobson 154). This quotation is summing up that even though the police are looking for Jack, this could not let anything stop him from reuniting with his mother.