Wild About Books

With a rollicking rhyme - "It started the summer of 2002, / When the Springfield librarian, Molly McGrew, / by mistake drove her bookmobile into the zoo." - and exuberantly entertaining illustrations, Wild About Books is one picture-book that just begs to be read aloud! Slowly seduced by the power of story, and by the charms of storyteller Molly McGrew, the animal residents of the Springfield zoo eventually find themselves both bibliophiles and budding authors, a process which culminates in the construction of their very own "zoobrary."

Dedicated to the incomparable Dr. Seuss, and in much the same vein, this appealing title would make an excellent story-hour selection. I enjoyed the sing-song style of the text, which moves along at a show more nice clip, and boasts a rhyming scheme that reads very well, and never feels forced, and found the artwork by Marc Brown (creator of the Arthur books) quite appealing. Humorous and heartwarming, this is a book I would recommend to young bibliophiles and animal lovers, as well as to anyone looking for good children's stories for story-hour or bedtime reading. show less

t started the summer of 2002, when the Springfield librarian, Molly McGrew, by mistake drove her bookmobile into the zoo. In this rollicking rhymed story, Molly introduces birds and beasts to this new something called reading. She finds the perfect book for every animal—tall books for giraffes, tiny ones for crickets. “She even found waterproof books for the otter, who never went swimming without Harry Potter.” In no time at all, Molly has them “forsaking their niches, their nests, and their nooks,” going “wild, simply wild, about wonderful books.”

I loved this the minute I saw it. The lilting rhymes move the story right along, the lively drawings are both humorous and colorful, and the books' titles which the various animals read, are cleverly attuned to both the animal reading them and an adult's knowledge of books. The purpose of this book, to encourage and inculcate a love of reading, is wonderfully fulfilled in this cheerful and engaging book.
If you like Dr. Seuss and/or Bill Peet, you and your children will like this. (The dedication at the end, signed by both author and illustrator honors Dr. Seuss.)

The rhyming text rollicks right along, as the animals learn to love to read, to tell stories, to write, and then to build and manage a branch library of their own! I particularly liked the treasure hunt of the different titles, for example Big Bad Bruce and We're Going on a Bear Hunt. And the insects' haikus (with the critiques by the scorpion) are fabulous!

If only it didn't take place in a zoo. :(

I am absolutely in love with this book; I even purchased my own copy after reading it in class! I like the language used in this book. The words rhyme, and the author used a lot of figurative language. For example, “And bears’ love of books was completely outrageous—they licked all the pictures right off of the pages.” The illustrations are also fantastic. They are colorful and bold. It also references a lot of other popular books such as Dr. Seuss and Harry Potter, while also introducing different types of writings. For example, “At the new insect zoo, bugs were scribbling haiku.”
The central message of this book is to show that reading is fun and that there are books for everyone. Judy Sierra proved that no matter how big show more or how small you are, there are books just for you. Along with all of the fun she is expressing about reading, she includes that writing can be just as fun. show less

This book was an educational way to introduce reading as a fun hobby to children, and I really enjoyed it. It starts with a librarian who mistakenly drove her public library “bookmobile” out near a zoo, and from there described how excited all of the animals were to pick out books on topics that they found interesting. I also liked how the book referenced Dr. Suees and Nancy Drew, and how all of the animals came running towards her to hear her read during the book. The author writes: “Forsaking their niches, their nests, and their nooks, they went wild, simply wild, about wonderful books,” which subtly shows what kinds of habitats animals live in/could be a good discussion to have after the book is read to a class.
The idea of show more wild animals (or a child’s favorite animal) being excited for reading will make them more inclined to enjoy reading as well. In addition, the illustrations are colorful and exciting and “wild,” and show all different kinds of animals on each page reading books that children might find familiar like Peter Pan and Dumbo. Throughout the book, I was connecting with familiar authors and titles, so I got to thinking about how fun it would be for kids to relate to a book that a hippopotamus was reading in this book.
I also liked how the book was written in sing-songy rhymes, like “the pandas demanded more books in Chinese. Molly filled their requests, always eager to please.” This shows that librarians are very helpful and there are tons of books to choose from at the library, whatever you’re interested in you should explore. This specific example also informed readers that pandas live in China.
As the book progresses, the animals decide to write their own books. I think this was a clever way to relate reading and writing, and maybe even spark creativity in children to do the same. She used relatable school struggles like “And although the gazelle couldn’t spell very well, like everyone else, she had stories to tell” that could help give children more confidence in learning from their mistakes and continuing to write. The last part of the book that I thought was very cute was when the animals changed the name in the zoo to “Zoobrary.” show less

The fact that it has my name in it biases me a little, but I really enjoyed this book. The rhymes are clever and the story even more-so. I read this to my mother's fourth graders and they enjoyed it (especially the otters reading Harry Potter).