The Zoo's Grand Opening: An ABC and Counting Book

Children love animals, letters, and games involving numbers. With this book, even the youngest children can playfully learn their ABCs, the names of animals, and how to count. This fun animal book tells the exciting story of a zoo preparing for its opening day. The head zookeeper, who guides young readers through its pages, is waiting anxiously for the animals to get there. Will they all be in their cages by the time the first visitors arrive? Illustrated with loving attention to detail, The Zoo's Grand Opening is ideal for pre-school children. The book opens on an empty zoo and then follows the arrival of the animals, starting with an anaconda (representing the letter "A" and the number one), followed by a bear ("B" and two) and so on all the way to "Z" and 26. While they enjoy the story, children will playfully be introduced to the letters of the alphabet and how to count. At its end, they have not only been introduced to a variety of creatures, but they also know how many animals can be seen at the grand opening.

K-Gr 2—Readers are asked to use their imaginations as an alphabetical array of animals arrives from around the world to reside in a new zoo. The book opens with an empty canvas and the animals (one to 26) are added until the zoo is full and ready for its grand opening. Each creature is described in a four-line stanza as the zookeeper introduces the new inhabitants. Some choices are unusual at best, such as an "Xinusil martian" from the moon, a mosquito, and a skunk—hardly zoo animals. The flat, stylized cartoon illustrations are anatomically correct but not as appealing as in other zoo books. A first-person style of narration is used throughout. Unfortunately, the zookeeper and his assistant add only minimal humor. There are many colorful books about the zoo available. While certainly playful, this title is far from grand.—Janene Corbin, Rosebank Elementary School, Nashville, TN