1 out of 4 stars
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Visiting the zoo is a fun experience for children. But what if you happened to live across from the zoo? Would you get bored of going there after a while?
The book Babu Goes Back to the Zoo by Miguel A. Toral is an exciting story that narrates one little boy’s experience of visiting the zoo. He lives across from the zoo and becomes bored because he had already seen all of the animals. A monkey with one red shoe spots him while he is leaving. The monkey promises to show Babu some new animals which he has never seen before. Babu agrees and the pair takes an adventure through the zoo until they encounter a strange type of animal. Actually, it may not even be an animal! The odd creature which they encounter soon brings one hundred and four of its friends to play with them. A dee-jay also appears. They all have a wonderful time together until it is time for them to return home.
Many children’s stories that are centered on a visit to the zoo tend to be realistic and educational. This book cannot be described as either of these. It is based solely on fantasy, but this made the story enjoyable and humorous. There was also an unexpected twist in the story that will captivate children and stimulate their imagination. As an adult reading this book, even I was surprised when the identity of the creature was revealed.
The sentences in the book followed a good rhyming scheme. Honestly, this was the best part of the book. The rhymes made it easy to comprehend the logical flow of Babu’s adventure. They also added an element of comedy to the story. For instance, one of the animals which Babu saw was a “snake that ate a six-layer cake.” I chuckled after reading this line.
The book contained illustrations on every page. Unfortunately, they were poorly drawn. Pale colors were also used. It is a widely known fact that children benefit from seeing brightly colored illustrations in books because it captures their interest, boosts their imaginative capabilities, and makes a fun reading experience. Therefore I think that this book would have benefitted from more creative illustrations.
Other features which could have been improved were the font size and the word choice. The font size was very small. Large, easy-to-read letters would have been more suitable for this book. I also noticed a few words which would be unfamiliar to younger children especially if they were reading the story by themselves. Two examples were “pondered,” and “detachable”. There were also words such as “tremendous” and “multicolored”. Although it is good for children to learn new words from books, too many can make a book tedious to read. I think the vocabulary could have been simpler in this story so that children could understand it easily.
It displeases me to write about the multitude of errors in this short tale. There were double question marks at the end of some sentences, incorrectly spelled words, and missing quotation marks. I do not think that this book was professionally edited.
Due to the poor illustrations, the small font size, the unsuitable word choice, and the grammatical errors in this storybook, I am awarding it 1 out of 4 stars. I would not recommend it to children unless these features have been improved.
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Babu goes back to the zoo.
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when I get a little money I buy books; and if I have any left l buy food and clothes
