Dear Zoo

So, a fun idea, but unfortunately, this book is dated and gender stereotyped. With books like this -- depicting all eight different animals as male -- no wonder kids go to the zoo and call every single animal "him" unless it is obviously nursing an infant. Sandra Boynton's books are a great alternative, and not so painfully and unnecessarily gendered.

Dear Zoo has become a classic of the children's literature canon and rightly deserves to be so. In this simple and sweet board book, the unnamed narrator notes how he/she wanted a pet and so wrote the zoo for one. The zoo responds by shipping over some animals. The first several tries are unsuccessful as the animals shipped are too big, too tall, too scary, etc. At last, the perfect pet arrives. Children from infants to toddlers to preschoolers absolutely love lifting the flap on each page to see what the zoo has shipped next. This is a great book for spending some quality time with the young ones in your life, allowing them to manipulate the flaps, identify animals (adding in the sound effects is always fun!), and otherwise have great show more fun while gaining pre-literacy skills. show less

Page after page introduces a new pet that, once revealed, proves not to be quite right for a variety of reasons... until the perfect one arrives. The animation, while simple, is well suited to the story, and the interactivity level is just right. Toddlers will especially love tapping the crates to reveal the animals one by one. Swipe the elephant, and it grows bigger on the page, trumpeting. The grumpy camel’s eye follows readers' fingers as they move about, the snake slithers across the screen with a finger swipe and the monkey actually "grabs" onto readers' fingers. Best of all, the story makes its way into the digital world with great intention, serving worn-out parents well. There is simply no guesswork.

This just sends me back to kindergarten again. Initially got it for teaching a class, but didn't use it. Also, why are all the animals male?

So, a fun idea, but unfortunately, this book is dated and gender stereotyped. With books like this -- depicting all eight different animals as male -- no wonder kids go to the zoo and call every single animal "him" unless it is obviously nursing an infant. Sandra Boynton's books are a great alternative, and not so painfully and unnecessarily gendered.

Children will of course love the idea of a pet lion, etc., but I dunno, maybe this is the millennium we should stop promoting animals in cages to children.

A charming lift-the-flap book that has become a mainstay in its genre. The story is suitably simple, aimed for the youngest of readers, and the subject of collecting exotic pets will appeal to a wide range of ages. What sets this book apart from other books like it, though, is the creativity of the various flaps. Some are cages, some have the animals peeking out the top, some are baskets ... it is fun to guess what animal you will find, based on the shape and clues in the flaps, along with the clues from the story. Making the appropriate animal sound is another fun game to accompany the reading. Both my daughters love this book, making me a happy mama.