Zoo

This is probably the most depressing book I've ever read. Great underlying message, but it hurt for me to read it - Browne did too good a job of capturing the animals' pain, as well as the mother's (who seems to be trapped in a zoo of her own with her oafish husband and ill-behaved children).

"Zoo" was an interesting and sad story about a family visiting a zoo. No one in the family seemed happy or excited to be going to the zoo. The two brothers were fighting the whole time, the dad was embarrassing everyone with the comments he was making, and the mom seemed sad for the animals. None of the animals were happy that they were in cages.
This story makes people think about how animals shouldn't be kept in a zoo and how unhappy they actually are. Even though "Zoo" was a little sad I liked how Browne didn't make the family happy and perfect because it was more realistic and shows kids every family has it's problems. Also that if a kids family is like the one in the book it might help them feel a little less alone.

A family goes to the zoo for a day. As they travel to the zoo and then as they walk around looking at the animals, we get to observe the personalities of this family. Anthony Browne shows us through illustrations and the behaviours and reactions of the individual characters to the animals in the zoo, the intricate dynamics of a family. Each character has a different perspective to the day at the zoo. With the bombastic father who's image takes up much of the page and the quiet, long suffering image of the mother always to the back or side of the page, I kept thinking 'there's a divorce on the horizon for that family or there should be'! As I saw the images of the depressed captive animals I also kept thinking 'I hate zoos'.
Review by: Fiona

Browne again exhibits his inimitable dry wit. His effectively stark, magnificently realistic illustrations of the zoo animals offer a distinct contrast to his clever renditions of the supposedly human visitors to the zoo, many of whom bear an uncanny resemblance to the creatures in the cages.This book offers a very interesting twist on the traditional visit to the zoo story. The beautiful illustrations depict the visitors to the zoo as cartoon with animal like qualities (ie tails, ears, webbed feet, etc) while the depictions of the animals in the zoo are hauntingly realistic.

This book offers a very interesting twist on the traditional visit to the zoo story. The beautiful illustrations depict the visitors to the zoo as cartoonish with animal like qualities (ie tails, ears, webbed feet, etc) while the depictions of the animals in the zoo are hauntingly realistic. Great read-aloud choice with plenty of room for discussion!

I've read quite a few Anthony Browne books and a lot of them really focus on the importance of animals and it was very nice to read this book and sort of have a full circle moment (even though the characters in the book weren't that interested in the animals).