Zoo Doings

by Jack Prelutsky, Paul O. Zelinsky (Illustrator)

Make way for a zany zoo-full of wonderful poems saluting the animal kingdom, composed by a reigning children's poet, Jack Prelutsky. Readers familiar with Prelutsky's staggeringly vast body of work know that he can always be counted on for clever nonsense poems that are guaranteed to elicit giggles. His track record remains unbeatable with this wacky collection of animal odes. Some poems resemble the work of Ogden Nash ("Oysters / are creatures / without / any features."), and others have a style and flavor that is pure Prelutsky ("The widdly, waddly walrus / has flippery, floppery feet. / He dives in the ocean for dinner / and stands on his noggin to eat.").

These playfully preposterous rhymes are illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky, winner of the 1998 Caldecott Medal for Rapunzel. The delightful line drawings that scamper across the pages bring creatures such as the huge hippopotamus, the gallivanting gecko, and the speedy cheetah to rib-tickling life. Kids will love parading through these poems, and adults will get a kick out of playing along too. (Ages 4 to 12)

Genres: Poetry, Picture Books, Childrens, Animals, Juvenile

79 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Jack Prelutsky is an American poet. He attended New York public schools, and later the High School of Music and Art and Hunter College. Prelutsky, who has also worked as a busboy, furniture mover, folk singer, and cab driver, claims that he hated poetry in grade school because of the way it was taught. He is the author of more than 30 poetry collections including Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep< and A Pizza the Size of the Sun. He has also compiled countless children's anthologies comprised of poems of others'. Jack Prelutsky was married to Von Tre Venefue, a woman he had met in France. They divorced in 1995, but Jack remarried. He currently lives in Washington state with his wife, Carolyn. He befriended a gay poet named Espiritu Salamanca in 1997 and both now work together in writing poems and stories for children and adults alike.

Reviews

[Luisa Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not every animal in here you’ll see at the zoo, some are every day animals you’d see in your backyard or on a farm, but there’s lots of silly rhymes about them all!

The kiddos liked this one! We broke up the read over a week in prep for our zoo trip.

Ages: 2 - 8

Watch this reel for zoo trip inspiration!

Content Considerations: nothing to note.

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[Marilyn Showalter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry
3rd-5th grade reading level
I thought this book had a variety of different poems and styles of writing. I like that it mixed up lengths of poems and styles of poems such as the rhythm, rhymes, and alliterations found within them. I think this would be a good book for students who love animals. If I knew a student didn’t like poetry I might try reading them some from this since it incorporates a lot of familiar things that makes it a little more fun.

[Adrianne Rosal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems, poems and poems.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of fun and sometimes nonsensical verses that will make children giggle. The subjects are animals that nearly all children will be familiar with and an illustration accompanies every verse. All verses are short and the following is the one for the chipmunk.

"Chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter
is the chipmunk's steady patter,
even when he's eating acorns
(which he hopes will make him fatter)."

As the example shows, each segment of verse contains a few facts about the featured animal, so this book is both entertaining and educational. Rhyming verse is an effective way to encourage children to read and this book will attract them for it is just fun to read.

This review also appears on Amazon

[Rachel Keller · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun book and so accessible to elementary children. I have never met a child in elementary school who is not, at least a little bit, interested in animals. These cute, quirky, and informative poems capture that interest and inspire creativity. I was especially drawn to the poem Electric Eels (p. 46). The poem shares real facts about the eel, yet it does so in a sing-song way. I think it is a nice example of how a poem can teach you something, but can be approachable. I would use this book in my classroom as a literacy and science combination. I think it would be inspiring to read the poems, choose and animal t research, and then present what you learned in the form of a poem. Great book!

[Candice Call · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book includes a collection of poems all based on a zoo animal theme. Although younger students may not be able to read the poems independently, the book is a good example to show the students how poems vary (shot, long, theme, rhyming, etc.) An exicting activity for this book would be to read some of the poems as examples before or after a zoo field trip then have students create their own poems based on what animal they saw and the observations they made.

[Katherine Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun book of short poems about animals. Children will love the catchy rhyme and rhythm and even the brevity of the poems will engage children. I would recommend this book to children from early to middle elementary aged readers. Each animal poem has a small illustration to go with it. Teachers can teach rhyming patterns with this book and even do fun, creative projects to go with the poems.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read this one aloud to Taicy over the last couple days- it has a ton of great, simple poems about different animals in the zoo, but not just the common ones. He writes about a lot of much lesser emphasized animals. It's a great collection of poetry.

[Lindsey Richard]

Full of fun poems that are relatively easy to read. No poem takes up more than two of the small pages, and that is including the small sketches by each entry. Every poem in here is about animals, hence the name "Zoo Doings". Very good book to get younger children involved in poetry.

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

fun, simple children's poems about animals.

"Don't ever make
the sad mistake
of stepping on a sleeping snake
(because his jaws might be awake!)"

[Alex]

DUMB

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked that he wrote poems about some animals that normally do not get recognized, like the eel or dromedary. However, there were a few poems where the rhythm was a little off and bothers me.

[Leah Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Counts as a poetry anthology. one book.

[Johnny Bennett · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few interesting tongue twistery bits of prose but overall not very inspired. And poorly bound.