by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 14, 2010

The animals at the zoo are talking - and things are about to get strange. Writer-illustrator Adam Rex created a very funny story that reads like comic book. A little girl takes the subway to his neighborhood zoo, and discovers each animal has a special request. But in addition to the funny premise, there's several smaller jokes that are scattered throughout the book.

For example, on the fifth page of the book there's a sign which points out the various attractions in the zoo. There's a sign pointing to the peacock, the gorilla, and to...page four! And the zoo map on the inside back cover includes a warning that "Children not claimed at closing time become property of the Zoo". (It adds, matter of factly, that lost children "will be fed to the bears.") The map even includes a key for its symbols, which includes a horizontal line in a circle it says represents...a hyphen. And the author's description on the back cover describes author Rex as "a diurnal mammal found in North America..." adding that he's "omnivorous, subsisting mostly on vegetation and birds' eggs!"

It's this sense of humor that makes the book fun, as Rex finds ways to make each request more entertaining. The sloths are hanging upside down when they ask the girl for bicycle helmets, and when she asks why they need them, a sloth plummets to the ground with a klunk.  ("Right...  Bicycle helmets," the girl quickly agrees.) And what's the request from bats hanging in the cave?

"Flashlights.  Many, many flashlights..."

I thought bats liked the dark, the little girl points out.  And the bats answer that they do, "but the hippopotamus doesn't."  Deep in the black cave, a hippopotamus emerges. But the preceding page shows an even stranger creature - a man wearing a pointy-eared cowl and a superhero's utility belt!

The penguins want paint, the baboon wants a comfy chair, and the turkeys want to convert their corn into a clean-burning fuel. But there's a cheerful tone throughout, since it all takes place on colorful backgrounds - warm orange or pastel blue. The zoo's scenes are just sketched in a transparent outline, which highlights the fully-drawn characters that appear in the foreground. And both the zoo and its animals gradually get more and more detail.

The illustrations seem clever and intelligent, and the animals each have a different personality.  But Rex really outdoes himself with his last drawing of the animals. They've all crowded together into a flying hot rod car called "the zoomobile." And it's flying off into the night - following a bat in its headlights!

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