Kid Lit Review: The Secret Zoo

What would you do if you started to receive strange clues from Zoo animals about your sister's disappearance?  Think you were seeing things?  Investigate the Zoo?  Call on the other Action Scouts (friends) to help you figure it out?  That's what Noah does when his sister, Megan, disappears.  Noah, Ellie and Richie find themselves being noticed by the Zoo animals, as if the animals know who they are.  The animals seem to be helping the Action Scouts try to find Megan.

A secret world is opened up to the Scouts--where they befriend a polar bear named Blizzard, a penguin named Podgy, and a kingfisher named Marlo.  The Secret Zoo by Bryan Chick is both wondrous and dangerous with adventure and wild animals lurking at every turn.  It won't be an easy task for the Action Scouts to find Megan.

I enjoyed this story because I loved reading about the animals befriending and helping the children.  Who wouldn't want to go the Zoo and have one of the animals recognize you and come up to you?!  The author says when he was 9, he "wondered what it would be like if zoo exhibits had secret passages that allowed kids to get in and animals to get out."  There are also themes of conservation and stewardship of the animals in our world.

Read a preview of the book here.



Image from bryanchick.com