Zoo-Looking

by Mem Fox, Candace Whitman (Illustrator)

While Flora visits the zoo with her father, not only does she look at the animals but some of them turn to look at her

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Childrens, Storytime, Family, Science, Kids

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Merrion Frances Fox is an Australian writer of children's books and an educationalist specialising in literacy. Fox has been semi-retired since 1996, but she still gives seminars and lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

Reviews

[Vivian]

On a visit to the zoo a child looks at the animals and they look back. The story is written in verse and along the way there are lots of adjectives, verbs, and adverbs that are fun to share. Invite children to say these new words.

There's a GIRAFFE, a PANTHER, a TIGER, a SNAKE, a PENGUIN, a MONKEY, an OSTRICH, a ZEBRA, a KOALA, a BEAR, a GORILLA, a CAMEL, and an ELEPHANT.

[Maria Salgado]

This simple book is great because of its simple text and great pictures. It can be used to talk about animals, rhyming, and things we can see. The children will easily be able to keep up and even guess what the animals will be doing.

[Stephanie Reid]

It was just ok

[Katie]

This colorful book is wonderful for early readers learning about different animals.

[Amanda]

Great book for toddlers and beginner readers. My little guy loves all of the animal pictures too.

[Cheryl]

Star off for normalizing traditional zoos. Terrific pattern to the rhyming text, though.

[Syntha Green]

Good for storytime perhaps

[Charlotte]

I like the book because it has so many good things that I like. I like tigers
I like my dad. I like ostriches. I like bears.

-Charlotte
Age 5 (read independently)

[Laurie]

Matt likes the Dad

[Miss Sarah]

A girl visits the zoo in this toddler and up book where the girl isn't the only one doing the looking. toddler and up

[skcocnaH]

“She looked at the monkey as it’s baby got a smack.” That line alone should tell you how I felt about this book. Also the illustrations…I’m speechless.

[Spencer]

2023

[Library Lady Terri]

Hockessin Library - Rhythm, Rhyme, and Story Time - 2/24/26

[Calvin Smith]

40/1000

[Melissa]

This was a great early reader book. My kindergartner was able to read aloud with context and picture clues. Illustrations were good.

[Lyndsey Hurm]

This is a book about a girl who goes to the zoo. I though that the story itself was ok.... but I would definitely use this book in my class to teach about different writing crafting techniques. The author uses a lot of hyphenated words so I would teach about hyphens and also repeats phrases a lot throughout the story.

[Dolly]

Not overly impressed with this book. We adore the book "Time for Bed" by Mem Fox, so I hoped we'd enjoy this just as much. The narrative is rhyming, but just not that engaging and the illustrations are just fuzzy, not bad, but not great either.

[Alana Arlequin]

This is a good book for read-alouds and for early readers.It allows them to recognize different animals. It also has components of rhyming words as well as repetition and patterns which could be used for a math lesson.

[Karina Espinales]

This book is about a girl that goes to the zoo and looks at the animals. It is a great book to use for the students that are learning their sight words like look, at, the, it, and, to, a. It is a very easy read and the students will enjoy it because of the illustrations.

[Shakita]

In this book, we meet a girl who visits the zoo. She sees all these animals and they are looking back at her also. This book had repeating lines on every other page. I liked how the author did that and I didn't notice the pattern immediately, but I would encourage students to use this craft.

[Rocheal Hoffman]

-ack words
Adjectives
Animals
Zoo

This is a good book to get kids thinking about the characteristics of different animals. Easy language, which would make it a suitable science-connections book for ESOL students.

[Janet]

Love the illustrations by Whitman in this title. The text is sparse, however, it does convey the fact that when one is looking at the animals in the zoo they are looking back at you. Good for introducing the youngest to zoo animals.

[Jason]

This kind of torn paper art really does nothing for me. I can appreciate the layouts and that it's skillfully done, but I like either precision in representational art of complete abstraction (cartoon art is exempt from this standard).

[Cheryl]

Beautiful story of a young girl who visits the animals of the zoo with her father. I really liked the illustrations.

[Esther]

A little girl goes to the zoo with her dad and looks at all the different animals that look at her back :) Awesome pictures, has rhyming for phonemic awareness.

[Airiel Owens]

This book would be good for a "zoo walk" You can talk to kids about the different animals in the book.

[Irina]

This book is very short and simple showing various zoo animals. This could be used as an introduction to certain kinds of animals. (science)

[Leah]

Simple sweet story about zoo animals.

[Andrea]

Nice rhymes but not one of my favorites by Mem Fox.

[Kelly]

Storytime - Zoo!