My daughters (who are 5 and 7) and I have really enjoyed reading this book series together. Zoe is a young girl who lives inside a rescue zoo with her veterinarian mother, her great uncle Horace who founded the zoo, and her best friend Meep, a cheeky mouse-lemur. When Zoe turned six she discovered a secret ability - she can talk to animals. In every book, the story starts when Great Uncle Horace brings a newly rescued animal to the zoo, and Zoe's special connection to animals means she must help them.
We just reread The Lonely Lion cub and it's the most memorable book of the series for me. Rory is a little lion cub who comes to the zoo traumatized after his entire pride was taken by poachers. Rory refuses to eat and starts to get weak at the zoo hospital. The zoo has one other lion, an old grumpy male named Leonard who roars at other people. After talking to Leonard, Zoe realizes that Leonard also has a difficult past and that his bad behavior is in fact the result of his own trauma and loneliness. Zoe has the idea to move Rory into Leonard's enclosure in the hopes that Leonard will befriend Rory. But Zoe has a hard time convincing her mother and the rest of the zoo staff, given that an aggressive grown male like Leonard could be a danger to the cub. Zoe is the only one that knows the true reasons behind the lions' emotions and that makes her alone in her own right amongst these other grown ups. But Zoe is a positive, caring young girl who deeply loves animals and that drives her to resourcefully solve the problem. With a clear and upbeat writing style, the author tells the story of Zoe ultimately saving her new animal friend.