Somewhere along the line, Mom and Dad probably told you not to feed the animals at the Zoo. But they probably NEVER told you not to drive under a bridge with a giraffe. Never fear, Todd Parr is here!
This is a review of one of our favorite books these days, Todd Parr's Zoo Do's and Don'ts. Truthfully, this book first captured my eye because of both the style of the illustrations and the humor in the text. But my daughter Jasmine (17 months) is now a fan of Mr. Parr as well. This book really brightens our day.
Zoo Do's and Don'ts is a regular cloth book, approximately six inches tall and six inches wide. It is very brightly colored (vivid pinks, purples, oranges, blues, reds, and yellows fill in the black outlines of the drawings). The illustrations are fairly simple renderings of the subjects of the story (they are kind of "child-like" but not overly so). It is hard to explain in pure words...but the illustrations are very lively and energetic, and really complement the text of the book.
This book is full of advice on how to interact with the animals at the Zoo. For example, the first piece of advice you will receive from Mr. Parr is: Do Feed an Elephant Peanuts (on the left page), Don't Feed her Peanut Butter (on the right page). Pretty sound advice, I'd say!! Accompanying the advice on dealing with the elephants is a lively drawing of a smiling (and polkadot-wearing) elephant with some peanuts (on the left page) and a peanut butter-eating elephant (on the right page). Some more advice you'll receive later in the book: Do Play Games with a Leopard...Don't Play Connect-the-Dots (can you guess what the leopard on the Don't page looks like??!!) YIPES.
This book is just hysterical...in a way that you and your kids can appreciate together. Besides elephants and leopards, Mr. Parr gives you advice on interacting with birds, hippos, kangaroos, skunks, monkeys, porcupines, lions, rhinos, giraffes, and snakes.
Like I said, this is one of our favorite books and my daughter often selects it for Mom to read. I think Jazz is mainly drawn (at her age) to the brightly colored drawings but I'm sure she can tell how much I enjoy the book. Not only do we really enjoy this book; it's also useful for teaching about animals and animal noises. I am also beginning to introduce colors to her with this book. And when Spring finally comes to our neck of the woods (if it ever comes LOL) and we actually plan a zoo trip, I'll use this book to teach her what to DO and DON'T DO at the zoo!
Yup, I'll be checking out some of Mr. Parr's other books...Do's and Don'ts, The Okay Book, Things that Make You Feel Good/Things that Make You Feel Bad, This is My Hair, and The Best Friends Book. Mr. Parr does have a web site if you want to check him out further...it is www.toddparr.com.
By the way, the title of this book is Zoo Do's and Don'ts. I believe Epinions has it listed as Do's and Don'ts at the Zoo. So if you're having trouble finding it, check out both titles!
DO buy this book...DON'T read it while you're driving home from the bookstore!
~~Update from later on March 9th~~
Freaky! I just went to Todd Parr's webpage (wonderful web page) and realized that we are considering some of his furniture for Jazz's playroom! I didn't make the connection until I saw his web page (the furniture is by FunTime Designs, the maker of Jasmine's current nursery furniture). Anyway the Todd Parr furniture can be found at: http://funtimedesigns.com/Products/Products.html
. No wonder I was really drawn to the book!!
Recommended:
