Zoo Stars

Fiction and Nonfiction

Nonfiction

  • The Zookeeper's Wifecover
    Author: Ackerman, Diane
    Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780393061727 Date: 2007
    star PW starBooklist
    When Germany invaded Poland, bombers devastated Warsaw--and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski smuggled Jews through the empty cages, saving hundreds of people from Nazi hands.
    Updated 8.20.07
  • Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo cover
    Author: Anthony, Lawrence & Graham Spence
    Publisher: Thomas Dunne $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780312358327 Date: 2007
    star Kirkusstar Booklist
    The amazing story of the soldiers, conservationists, and ordinary Iraqis who united to save the animals of the Baghdad Zoo.
    Updated 1.31.07
  • Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Pariscover
    by Michael Allin
    Publisher: Walker and Company ISBN: 0802713394 $22
    starBooklist star Kirkus
    In October 1826 a ship arrived at Marseille carrying the first giraffe ever seen in France. A royal offering from Muhammad Ali, Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, to King Charles X, she had already traveled 2,000 miles down the Nile to Alexandria, from where she had sailed across the Mediterranean standing in the hold, her long neck and head protruding though a hole cut in the deck. In the spring of 1827, after wintering in Marseille, she was carefully walked 550 miles to Paris, to the delight of thousands of onlookers. Zarafa chronicles the full story of this remarkable animal, revealing a kaleioscope of history, science, and culture that opens an exotic window on the early nineteenth century.
    Suggested Reading: Nature

Fiction

  • The Penguin Who Knew Too Much: Meg Langslowcover
    Author: Andrews, Donna
    Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780312329426 Date: 2007
    starPW
    From the bestselling author of No Nest for the Wicket comes this outrageous, fun mystery that features an eccentric cast of characters and lighthearted humor.
    Updated 6.4.07
  • Life of Picover
    Author: Martel, Yann
    Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151008116 Date: 2002
    starPWstarLibrary Journal
    This brilliant fabulist novel combines the delight of Kipling's Just So Stories with the metaphysical adventure of Jonah and the Whale, as Pi, the son of a zookeeper, is marooned aboard a lifeboat with a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan, and a tiger.
    Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars
    Updated 6/29/02