Product Description

If I Ran the Zoo welcomes yong readers to the crazy world of Gerald McGrew, who dreams of transforming his local zoo into a madcap menagerie of wierd and wonderful beasts. His New Zoo, McGrew Zoo would be "better than Noah's whole Ark", with an amazing array of animals, ranging from the incredible Thwerll, whose legs are snarled up in a terrible snerl, to the family of Joats, whose feet are like cows' but wear squirrel-skin coats! This delightful book forms part of the second stage in HarperCollins' major Dr. Seuss rebrand programme. With the relaunch of 10 more titles in August 2003, such all-time favourites as How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? and Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book boast bright new covers that incorporate much needed guidance on reading levels: Blue Back Books are for parents to share with young children, Green Back Books are for budding readers to tackle on their own, and Yellow Back Books are for older, more fluent readers to enjoy. If I Ran the Zoo belongs to the Yellow Back Book range.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38689 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

About the Author
Theodor Seuss Geisel -- better known to millions of his fans as Dr. Seuss -- was born the son of a park superintendent in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1904. After studying at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and later at Oxford University in England, he became a magazine humorist and cartoonist, and an advertising man. He soon turned his many talents to writing children's books, and his first book -- And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street -- was published in 1937. His greatest claim to fame was the one and only The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957, the first of a hugely successful range of early learning books known as Beginner Books.

Customer Reviews

If I Ran The Zoo gets thumbs up--two!
The book is wonderful! The illustrations are eye-catching and simple. The rhythm is easy to pick up! The children I have read it to bounce to the rhythme and like to make up there own animals at the end of the story. A family favorite for ALL!!

An Off-Target Look at Encouraging Creativity
Review Summary: In these days when we realize that wild animals are almost always better off in natural surroundings than in the zoo, this book chooses a questionable place for exercising creativity. The story also builds around the notion of employing lots people who live in the locales where rare animals occur to do much of the heavy lifting. That attitude also seems out of whack with a world in which we honor differences and seek people out on a common basis. Some will also wonder about the wisdom of having the youngster in the story simply let all of the zoo animals go. If you decide to introduce this story to your children, you will probably want to explain a few things to go along with the verse that Dr. Seuss wrote 50 years ago. Otherwise, you can safely avoid this book and go on to one of Dr. Seuss's many fine books that encourage creativity . . . without any mixed messages.

Review: In visiting the zoo, young Gerald McGrew expresses reservations about having an ordinary zoo. "I'd make a few changes." "I want something new!" "Let the animals go, and start over again." The illustration shows the cages being opened up with lions and tigers wandering off down the zoo paths . . . and not being returned to any appropriate place for them to live. Why is that a good example for children? Beats me!

The bulk of the story involves young Gerald telling the zookeeper what he'd do instead, while Gerald imagines himself as the zookeeper. The bulk of the story involves concocting exotic animals from far-off lands and unusual ways to capture them. One of the things I liked about the story is that many of these animals are connected a little to real places or animals. That makes the process of creating them more obvious to a child. For example, the first exotic animal is a lion with at least ten legs, five on each side.

The animals gradually veer away from the standard animals. Next, there's a "new sort-of-a-hen who roosts in another hen's topknot" and so forth so they are all stacked up on top of one another. Following that is an elephant-cat.

At that point, the flights of fancy move further afield. He goes on a hunt for a "What-do-you-know" past the North Pole. In typical Dr Seuss fashion, the names are formed to help make the rhymes work better. You get flustards and bustards. Flustards also eat mustard with a sauce made of custard. In similar fashion, lunks come in a bucket from Nantucket.

For those who watch closely, you'll be amused to see that there's a "Nerd" collected and illustrated here.

One of my favorite hunts is the one for a Natch, in which it is necessary to cook a special meal to lure him from his high cave.

By the time Gerald's done he concludes, "It's the gol-darndst zoo on the face of the earth!" The zoo's collection success he sees as a reflection of his own magnificence.

The illustrations are the book's strength, because the drawings are usually much funnier than the rhymes. the illustrations are done in red, yellow, and blue to highlight the weirdness of the exotic animals. The verse and illustrations complement one another well.

After you finish this story, think about how you could write new rhymes to make it a five-star book. With a little editing here and there, and an occasional added rhyme, you'll soon have a five-star collaboration with Dr. Seuss that you can proudly read to your child. Think of that!

Focus creativity where it will expand the heart as well as the mind!

One Irish rock star can't be wrong
This is the best book I've ever read. Given I've only read Go Dogs Go,Hop on Pop,and The Communist Manifesto. This book was recommended to me by Paul Hewson. Like I said one Irish rock star can't be wrong.