Read this today, took a couple of hours and I was enchanted. Could be an Outsiders book, what with the two main protagonists being gypsies' 'people jeer at those who are different from themselves- those who look different, or think differently, or live in different ways. They do it because difference is a frightening thing- sometimes an enviable thing.'

The actual setting is unclear- I am thinking Poland in the second world war and two boys are running away with no parents and their little baby sister. They come upon a small zoo that has miraculously escaped the bombing...and the animals talk.
It works on a fable level, making us question the cages we put our minds and bodies into through war and need for control.

Very moving, very beautiful, she writes with great assurance and confidence as only a master (or mistress) of the language can. Has the stamp of a classic. I would have liked more of the talking animals though; I found them so touching in their voices; the lioness smells their little sister Wilma; her cubs have been taken away and she says 'My cubs smelt as she does. Like pollen...All young ones must come from the same place.'