THE ZOO

A small girl’s visit to the zoo is very different from the one her parents experience in this witty tale of few words. The opening shows her on her dad’s shoulders, holding the bird balloon her mom has just purchased, her eye caught by the splendid peacock in the foreground. The scene is crowded with schoolgirls, lovers, picture takers and other parents, all in grays, blues and sepias, but the peacock is purple and turquoise and radiant. “We visited the monkey house, and Bear Hill,” the text says innocently, but what we see in the pictures are empty cages and enclosures and the small girl chasing after the peacock’s bright tail. Soon the pages burst into full color, and the child is among hippos and elephants and giraffes. Her increasingly frantic parents, however, seen on the grey pages between, are searching for her amidst the curiously empty enclosures. They find her asleep on a bench. What she sees upon departure is the candy-colored animals gathered to say goodbye, the peacock’s tail in full fan; her parents see an empty gateway. (Alert children will note that the child loses her pink boot while flying with the birds and spot which animal is chewing on it at the end.) Lee’s pictures, both color and grisaille, are wonderfully detailed, patterned and angular, with much to look at with delight. (Picture book. 4-8)