Zach at the Zoo

Noreen Mitchell is a librarian with the Toronto Public Library.

In this offbeat book, it’s not Zach who keeps getting lost at the zoo, but his father. Zach tries waiting for eight whole minutes and then sets out for the Lost and Found. Unfortunately, the instructions given to him by the man feeding the penguins are just a jumble and Zach ends up downtown with six lost penguins following him. A series of incidents follows with Zach making more mistaken turns and the penguins getting into various kinds of mischief at a movie theatre and in a fancy restaurant. Finally, Zach makes itback to the zoo Lost and Found where he trades in the penguins for his father. The story ends with a twist which parallels Zach’s experience after Zach’s father gets lost once again and he makes a wrong turn on his way back to the Lost and Found.

The humour in this book comes from the reversal of what is usually typical or predictable: itis Zach’s dad who is lost, not Zach (even though Zach gets lost too trying to find him); Zach is barred from the fancy restaurant but the penguins are not. This kind of nonsense is usually appealing to children but much of the humor in this book may need to be explained to them since sometimes itis more sophisticated or far-fetched than they are likely to understand. Another problem is the disjointedness of the text which seems to be matched by busy and confusing illustrations. It was only after several readings that I was able to pick out Zach’s father from the highly detailed pictures which require and deserve close examination. Even though this book has its drawbacks, itoffers several very funny passages and improves, overall, with successive readings.