Susan's Books & Gifts

PreSchool-Grade 1-In this engaging read-aloud, a little girl stumbles, drops her ice-cream cone, and gives a frustrated cry, despite the narrator’s warning to “Never, EVER shout in a zoo-/because if you do-/anything might happen.” Before long, the hapless heroine is being pursued by a scary bear, a moose on the loose, escaped apes, and an ever-growing menagerie of other animals. Released from tanks and cages, the creatures exact their revenge and gleefully surround the child, locking her (and some other humans) in a pen. The last page shows the girl, who is now standing next to an exhibit of a frozen dinosaur, stifling another shout. Observers are drawn into events on the first page, where the watercolor-and-pencil illustrations simply but effectively introduce the locale and then quickly propel the action forward. Presented against broad white backgrounds, the expressive animals project a benign ferocity tempered by baffled amusement. The bouncy text makes use of alliteration, repetition, and rhyming phrases as the narrator speaks directly to the bumptious child (“Uh-oh! Don’t say I didn’t warn you”). This lighthearted romp disguises a slightly scary concept, as captive creatures successfully break their bonds in an otherwise familiar and “safe” setting, but the mischievous tone and predictable developments mitigate the fear factor. Pair this with Shirley Neitzel’s Our Class Took a Trip to the Zoo (Greenwillow, 2002) for a silly armchair adventure.