Keeper

Keeper the boxer dog visits his animal friends in the zoo and saves a baby tamarin

PreSchool-Grade 2-- Keeper, the dog of a zoo owner, spends his day going from animal to animal at the zoo, chatting with them all. Then he saves a baby tamarin from drowning, and he goes home. The illustrations are quite endearing--the animals and their habitats are realistically detailed and each has its own charm. The text, unfortunately, is almost unreadable, full of cutesy-poo phrases and patronizing asides--"Tapirs live in the forests of South America and are very funny-looking animals. They are a bit like chocolate brown donkeys, but they have long whiffley noses rather like an elephants's trunk. When Claudius (the Tapir) saw Keeper, he made strange squeaking noises, which in Tapir language meant, 'Hello, Keeper, how are you?' " Information on five wild animals is given in the course of their conversations with Keeper in a gee-whiz manner that comes off as extremely contrived; Keeper has presumably lived in the zoo for a long time, but is astounded by these most basic facts. This one's a real dog. --JoAnn Rees, Sunnyvale Public Library, CA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.