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

Look, It's Kali! An Experience & Book Review

If you live anywhere near the Saint Louis Zoo, you need to make a trip to see the polar bear, Kali (pronounced Cully).  He is a very inquisitive and playful 2 1/2-year-old that just happens to weigh 850 lbs!  That isn't even his adult weight.  

Zoo members got a special preview day of Polar Bear Point the Friday before the exhibit opened. It was exciting--I kept wanting to go back to the area. What a sight to see!  Glass walls make the experience of being close to Kali more realistic.  The dive pool, coastline, and tundra landscape gives one's eye plenty to take in. One of the parts I love is the video playing on the screens in the top corners of Polar Bear Point of an Alaska Native people talking about their livelihood and their relationship to polar bears.

Kali's Story: An Orphaned Polar Bear Rescue by Jennifer Keats Curtis is a nonfiction photographic narrative of Kali's early life (a LOT happened before he turned 2 1/2).  It begins when a hunter kills a polar bear not realizing she is a nursing mother.  The hunter searches for the cub and brings him to the local village, Kali.  So begins Kali's amazing journey from Alaska to the Buffalo Zoo to the Saint Louis Zoo.  The photographs themselves are good documentation.

Kids will be are fascinated by Kali's story and to see his growth from a cub to now.  The book won CBC's Children's Choice Book Awards.  A good addition to an Arctic unit or an animal research paper.  Visit the publisher site for extras.


Book image from arbordalepublishing.com

A Dog’s Purpose

Recommended for grades 8 and up

You know you’ve got a good book in your hands when the flight attendant has to say, “Hello?! Excuse me!” to get your attention (apparently, I missed the only rows that had seats left).  Hey, can I help that I was that engrossed in a book?!  The guilty book in question was A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron.  For those that don't know me, I’m a dog person—100%!  In my family we have two dogs, Coco, who we spoil because she’s just so darn SWEET and Niko, my dog, who is just plain spoiled--it helps that he’s cute ;)  Both dogs are big time tail waggers (my family calls it “helicopter tail”) and their smiles are contagious. :)

Anyway, now that you’ve probably figured out just how spoiled both dogs are since I just gushed all about them, I’ll move on to talking about the book.  A Dog’s Purpose is written from the dog’s view point—in fact, you get to see the protagonist reincarnated several times.  It’s really quite brilliant the way Cameron writes a dog’s take on life.  The protagonist remembers his previous lives, so he applies his prior knowledge to his new situations.  The protagonist starts his life as Toby, a feral dog.  Eventually, Toby and his mother and siblings are caught and taken to what I first assumed (or was hoping) was once a rescue shelter, but ended up turning into a hoarder’s kennel.  Toby is not long for that life and is euthanized.  When he awakes he is reborn a golden retriever.  In this life, a woman rescues him from the verge of heatstroke and brings him home for her eight-year-old son, Ethan, who names the dog Bailey.

Bailey’s story is the one that stuck with me—because to read just how happy a dog could be and how he “shivered” with delight from the love and affection that radiated off “his boy” is so heart-wrenching and joyous at the same time.  The story of Bailey with the Montgomery family plays out with some drama.  Ethan has to deal with a troubled boy named Todd.  Bailey can sense darkness from Todd and feels when his anger radiates off him.  There are several incidences throughout the book that involve Todd and students could make inferences based off what Bailey senses.  The Montgomery story also involves trips to the “Farm” to visit Grandma and Grandpa (one of Bailey’s favorite places), a first love for Ethan, Bailey playing “rescue” Ethan from the pond, and Ethan going off to college.

Soon though, it is Bailey’s time to go (yes, I cried)…especially at this thought from Bailey, “…I hoped he wouldn’t cry over my death.  My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy.  I didn’t want to cause him unhappiness now” (p. 177)…  Bailey soon woke up to discover he was now Ellie.  Ellie was trained to be a search and rescue dog.  Then when Ellie grew old and was put to sleep, soon the protagonist was Bear.  I wasn’t expecting the ending, but if it wasn’t for the fact that I was sitting next to two strangers on a plane, I would have cried.  A good joyful cry because there really couldn’t have been a better, more true-to-life, feel good ending to a book about a dog.

Good for teens who liked Marley and Me by John Grogan!

Cameron, W. (2010). A Dog's purpose. New York, NY: Forge.

“Moo”ve Over Dr. Seuss

Recommended for grades PreK-1

From the author of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Judi Barrett combines numbers, rhyming, and animals in this colorfully illustrated story, I Knew Two Who Said Moo. Silliness takes over from the very beginning, with an elephant lying “on a toasted bun…playing the accordion…” Barrett makes sure that the rhyming words are in a different color from the rest of the text making them more readily identifiable. Sometimes she might get a little carried away with the rhyming, but at the same time it works because it adds to the humor of the book. We also have to remember that this is from the author who made it rain French toast with syrup.

The illustrations are brightly colored and mirror the text, making this a good choice for read aloud. In fact, kids can guess what the rhyming words are based on the numbers (the selected words rhyme with the featured number) and the clues in the illustrations. This book integrates language arts and math concepts very well.

Barrett, J. (2003). I knew two who said moo. New York, NY: Atheneum.