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This is a really cute book about a girl named Sue who is really excited to visit the zoo; when she arrives it is not what she expected. The animals at the zoo have all gone on strike. This delightful book is charming and the rhyming text is an excellent way to teach young children all about rhyming. I also think this would be an excellent book to explore history with older children with. You could talk about what it means to strike, and explore the many strikes that have taken place in history. I love the bright illustrations and the bold colors really make this book stand out. Entertaining and humorous this story is sure to please the whole family. ( )

The animals at the zoo are going on strike! The animals decide they do not want to be paid in peanuts anymore and decide they will not work anymore. The animals work to change their appearance and lay around to rest. In the end, they decide they love their job.

I enjoyed this book for three main reasons. The first reason I enjoyed this book was because of the illustrations that went along with the book. The illustrations really depict what an animal strike at the zoo would really look like. The pictures were colorful, eye catching, comical, and the pictures and text flow together smoothly. The text talks about how the zebras were painting each other to look more like horses and not zebras anymore. The illustrations showed the text because the illustration has zebras with paint and paintbrushes brushing each other and the zebras starting to look morel like horses. Not only did you read that the zebras were changing to horses through painting each other, you also got to see a great illustration of the zebras changing. Secondly, I really enjoyed the books rhythm and rhyme patterns. The concept of rhythm and rhyme refers to a pattern of rhymes that is created by using words that produce the same, or similar sounds. For example on page 14 it says, "The lions aren't roaring. The eagles aren't soaring. The penguins are snoring. It's all rather boring. What can the zookeeper do? There's an animal strike at the zoo." At the end of the first four sentences I have quoted, the last word rhymed with each other. They sounded similar to give it rhyme and rhythm. The last two sentences I quoted rhymed together do. 'Do' and 'zoo' both rhyme which created the rhythm. Lastly, I liked the plot of the story. It didn't focus on the zookeeper, or just on one animal. It focused and talked about several different animals and how they were acting. This will broaden children's minds about different animals and give them more experiences and learn more about different animals. The "big idea" of this book is that you might not like what you do, but you have a responsibility to yourself and others to do what you have to do. People look up to you and they rely on you. Like Sue in the book, she relied on the animals to be happy and ready at the zoo. But once they saw how sad Sue looked when she got to the zoo and saw all the animals not doing anything, then the animals put on a show for Sue to lift her spirits and make her happy. ( )