ZooZical

Starred review from June 6, 2011
Teens have Glee, tweens have High School Musical, and with this snappy follow-up to Wild About Books younger siblings can delight in the joy of putting on a show. When the book opens, the "midwinter doldrums" have descended on the zoo: "Owls did not give a hoot./ Pandas quit being cute./ Even penguins were surly./ The Zoo gates closed early." But a young hippo and a joey beat the blahs with a spirited, spontaneous dance, and entice the other creatures to stage a "ZooZical," a musical extravaganza that spotlights their many talents ("Bears walked the tightrope with elegant ease/ Flamingos whizzed by on the flying trapeze") and delights their human audience. With humor and gusto, Brown's richly textured folk artâinspired pictures convey the characters' dramatic shift in moods and imbue them with abundant personality. Meanwhile, Sierra's riffs on familiar tunes (rabbits sing "If you're hoppy and you know it, clap your paws..."; seals roll onstage on a bus, barking, "The seals on the bus go round and round...") guarantee that readings will be very musical affairs, with children enthusiastic participants. Ages 4â8.

April 15, 2011

Carrying on where they left off with Wild About Books (2004), their Seuss homage, Sierra and Brown find the good citizens of Springfield, and especially the residents of the zoo, overcome by the doldrums of winter.

It's windy and cold and snowy, and the sky can't get any lower. Leave it to two young'uns—a hippo and a kangaroo—to light the kind of fire that will get folks up and moving. In this case, a musical—or, more appropriately, a ZooZical—in which all the animals find a niche and partake in a peaceable kingdom mega-performance. Sierra and Brown have worked together enough by now to feel comfortable in each other's presence. They play off one another extremely well. Sierra's rhymed text is playful, with sassy touches—"Then on to the stage rolled ten seals on a bus, / Barking, 'Let's sing a tune that is all about us!' "—and her pacing is peerless. In lockstep with the proceedings are Brown's illustrations: merry and alive with energy. Here the raccoons are doing a jitterbug, there the snakes are exuberantly tying themselves into knots, while chorus lines of giraffes and macaques step out in style.

A book of sheer exuberance—vocal and visual—which surely will be reflected during read-alouds. (Picture book. 4-8) 

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2011

K-Gr 2-The midwinter doldrums have settled in at the zoo in this sequel to Wild About Books (Knopf, 2004). Fun times might be gone for the others, but a small hippo and a young kangaroo set the place hip-hopping. Inspired by the pair, zoo inhabitants sing their versions of favorite children's songs ("Oh my darling porcupine," "If you're hoppy and you know it, clap your paws," and "For he's a jolly gorilla," to name a few). They work on posters, costumes, and scenery, and on a cold wintry night people come to see the musical extravaganza. The curtains rise on bears walking the tightrope, baboons dancing in troops, crocodile kids leading an alphabet song, and seals singing about seals on the bus. The grand finale features the young kangaroo leading the Zoo Hokey Pokey. "It was one of those times that you hope never ends, /When penguins and pandas and pythons are friends, /When tigers don't bite, when the doldrums take flight, /On a magical, musical ZooZical night." Brown's bright, energetic animals hop, jump, prance, and dance across generous full-color spreads. Sierra's language-rich couplets with their easy rhythms will have young readers tapping their toes. This joyous sing-along, read-along romp is guaranteed to chase away the doldrums any time of year.-Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2011
Preschool-G In the spirit of the writer and illustrator's previous outing, Wild about Books (2004), which was also populated with googly-eyed animals, Sierra's rhymes rollick along trippingly, and Brown's pictures are characteristically cheery. In a snowbound city zoo, the winter-weary denizens have reached their limit. Owls did not give a hoot. / Pandas quit being cute. But then a hippo collapses and scares a little hippo into the airand a young kangaroo joins in. Soon other animals become inspired, too, and launch a ZooZical production, rousing both themselves and the town. Detailed spreads invite readers to look for humorous pairings, such as a cheetah providing stage makeup for an antelope or snakes forming hula hoops around a giraffe's neck. Although a few lines scan strangely (When he finally awoke, he / Delighted the crowd with a wild karaoke), and the backgrounds of some animals' habitats aren't bleakly snowy at all (blue skies and flowers make an appearance), most of Sierra and Brown's fans won't mind.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)