Copper the cat and the adventure of the stranded panda (The Zoo detective)

When Ping Pong the baby panda is stranded in the bamboo tree, the other zoo animals have very imaginative suggestions for getting her down again.

A book that is seriously flawed. When the zookeeper announces that Ping Pong, the baby panda, is stuck in a bamboo tree, the entire zoo is in an uproar. Copper the cat looks for answers, but it is Yaloo the polar bear's suggestion that saves the day. Even on the most basic level, this is not a mystery. And without a mystery, there is no need for the Zoo Detective. But then, Copper the cat is no detective; he has no ideas and comes up with no theories or solutions. Rather, he polls the other animals for their ideas. Frazer's sketchy text has little narrative flow and reads like an outline, and his conclusion is insultingly simplistic. Non sequiturs and outright errors abound. Faulkner's crosshatched line-and-wash illustrations often lack continuity. On one page a fireman is shown running with a ladder in hand; on the next he is shown climbing a hook and ladder. The bamboo tree in which the panda is stuck is pictured as a coconut palm. Such confusion has no place in either a picture book or a mystery. --Jeanne Marie Clancy, Upper Merion Township Library, King of Prussia, PA
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.