More fitting still is the subject of this book, given that my recent weeks have been completely dominated by a massive project that I've undertaken with the local zoo (one of the best zoos if not THE best zoo in the country I think).
Anyway, I had been desperately trying to work my way through a much thicker text today after not being able to devote time to reading this week (shame on me). But it got to around quarter to eleven before I thought I needed a rethink.
So I plucked this off of the shelf and just so happened to notice it had won an award. The Kate Greenway Medal, given out in recognition of outstanding illustration. It is well deserved. After all how can you argue with a book that allows it's climactic scene to be wordless with an illustration as devastatingly detailed as this?
But the illustrations coupled with certain choice words and phrases cause us to examine things from an upside down perspective as we start to ask who the real animals are. From the outset there are illustrations that make us quesiton the people, like the man in the ticket office with a meerkat snarl. Or the picture of dad with the perfectly placed bull horn clouds behind him further on.
The animals in their enclosures look completely despondent, forcing us to wonder if the zoo is the best place for them. But quite possibly the most pressing question we're forced to ponder is the one where we ask (after listening to the children moan about being hungry and saying that their favourite bits had nothing to do with actually seeing animals) who does the zoo really benefit? Not the children clearly from the message that this book is sending. Not the parents either who are hard pushed to pay the entrance fee let alone all the extras that come with it. And certainly not the poor animals who are being gawped at whilst shut in their closed spaces.
While I'm not sure I agree with some of the messages that this book gives out, I do like the fact that it makes you stop and consider. In fact by the time you read the last lines of the book you come away with a feeling of being unsettled.
"That night I had a very strange dream." says the little boy, as we are made to look at him sitting, head in his knees with sorrow in a room behind bars. "Do you think animals have dreams?"
At 24 pages it is hardly an arduous read, the language is very basic but gets away with that due to the perspective it's coming from and the fact that the illustrations do a lot of speaking of their own. There are clever moments in the book though. One in particular where Dad cracks a joke and it's followed by the beautiful honest irony of the son's response "Everyone laughed except Mum and Harry and me."
I've been in Dad's shoes! The only one laughing at my own jokes!
I'd recommend it to anyone from nursery up as it's a beautiful easy read.
Book 41 of my 52 book list and my award winning book. Aptly timed but an honest cop out as it was such an obvious and easy choice!
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