Find out about the final animal that was sent by the zoo. Make a poster to teach others how to look after it. This review is for Dear Zoo: Noisy Book, which I think is the best of all the many versions and formats. It begins: However the Dear Zoo: Noisy book is well nigh perfect. It includes the fun element of flaps, teaches both the names of the animals and how to identify them. It invites questions such as: “How big is the crate?” and “What sort of animal might fit inside there?” It uses language with simple repetition, but also creatively. It has clear, attractive and humorous line drawings in bold colours.

Noisy Farm by Rod Campbell - Pan Macmillan Noisy Farm by Rod Campbell - Pan Macmillan

Try to find out information about each animal. Where does it live? What does it eat? What does a zookeeper need to do to look after it. I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet..." (That's a direct quote from the book) and then I'd pull out a different puppet from the box and bring it to life for a few seconds. It was fun to have the parents and talking kids chant the line over and over with me. And it was even more fun to see the children's excitement when a "live" animal came out of the box. Priceless. As he hasn't ruled out one day becoming a zookeeper, Ben found the premise of this book intriguing; a kid writes a letter to the zoo and gets free stuff. Sounds great, right? After all, he's currently unemployed and can't very well buy his own things, let alone afford a pet. Also there's flaps and those always blow his mind. Dear Zoo” was written as a lift-the-flap board book in 1982, by the Scottish author, Rod Campbell. It is his most famous work, and thirty-five years later, it is still tremendously popular among the under fives in Great Britain, and has been translated into more than a dozen different languages. This story is a fun introduction to animals and their characteristics. It is written in the first person, with repetitive sentences. The nature of repetitiveness enables young readers to predict and engage with the story.But my daughter really loves this book. And my husband told me to lighten up, get off my high horse and "it's only a kids' book. Don't worry about it." So maybe the lift up flaps are great. And how lovely it would be to have a zoo keep sending you animals on demand. Yeah, ok, it's a fab book. But this book has a delightful extra feature. It is a “noisy” book! And I can assure you (because I’ve done this myself) that if you accidentally sit on it, you will find that it might trumpet at you, or chatter like a monkey, or even (and this is a bit scary if you’re not expecting it!) even hiss like a snake!

Dear Zoo books: a complete guide - Pan Macmillan Dear Zoo books: a complete guide - Pan Macmillan

Parents / older brothers and sisters might have read this book when they were young. Interview them and find out what other books they remember from their childhood. The book contains lots of adjectives. Look at photos of each animal and think of other adjectives to describe them. When I "read" it, I had a box marked "From the Zoo" (as if the kids could read it) and I would just say the same line over and over again:

Regardless. Is it a bit hypocritical of me to be endorsing this book, based on my ethical beliefs that animals are not toys to be swapped, sold on, imprisoned or treated as inanimate objects, blah, blah, blah. Am I delivering a dark, subconscious message of irresponsibility to my child when I read her this? The book was first published in 1982. Can you find other books which were published at a similar time? What was life like in 1982? How have things changed? Could you write a sequel to the book, which involves someone asking for something but each time they receive a gift, there is something ‘wrong’ with it?