Way To The Zoo - Softcover

John Burningham is widely regarded as one of the world's finest picture book artists. With over 35 books to his name, he has twice been awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal, for Borka: The Adventures of a Goose with No Feathers and Mr Gumpy's Outing. Among his other celebrated books is Granpa, for which he was awarded the Kurt Maschler Award, and which was later made into a successful feature film. He lives in North West London. Find him online at www.johnburningham.com and on Twitter as @john_burningham.

PreS-Gr 1—What could be more wonderful for Sylvie than discovering a secret door in her bedroom that leads down a passageway right to a zoo? After taking home a little bear for a sleepover the first night, the other animals all want to do the same. The smaller animals fit right in, while others are less successful (the penguins make a splashy mess, the monkeys tend to steal things, the rhino is too big for the bed). All goes well until, in a rush to get to school one morning, Sylvie forgets to close the secret door. When she comes home, she finds all of the animals sprawled about the living room watching TV. She promptly shoos them back and gets the house almost presentable when her dismayed mom returns and shouts, "All I have to do is leave you at home while I go out for awhile and it looks as if you had the whole zoo in here." The sketchy pen, pencil, pastel and watercolor illustrations are set against expansive white space that frames the action from page to page. Text and art work seamlessly together in this tale that mirrors the secret dreams of many imaginative children.—Marge Loch-Wouters, La Crosse Public Library, WI