Learning & Development: Literacy - Dear Zoo

Picture book classic Dear Zoo is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Still a popular choice among pre-schoolers, this lift-the-flap favourite by Rod Campbell tells of a child's efforts to find a pet. 'I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet,' explains the narrator. The zoo, in turn, sends a series of unsuitable animals which have to be sent back. Finally, the perfect pet is delivered.

The story features eight animals, each one delivered in its own distinctive box and each a more unsuitable pet than the last. From the big yellow crate marked 'Very Heavy!' to the little red shoebox with air holes in the side, there are lots of clues to help children guess which animal is about to emerge.

The lift-the-flap format enables the children to engage with the story by opening the various boxes and crates. Each box opens in a different way, encouraging curiosity and exploration, and offers the chance to discuss the occupant's size, behaviour, natural environment and feeding habits before deciding how suitable it might be as a household pet. Every time a box is returned to the zoo, another arrives in its place, ending with the one containing a dog, the perfect pet that everyone wants to keep.

To celebrate the book's anniversary, I invited a group of 30 children and their parents to join me on a walk around their local park in Hayes, Middlesex, to explore this simple story in an exciting and interactive way. Taking stories away from just sitting quietly and looking at the printed page, and out into the open air, with plenty of physical exercise and hands-on props, can really help to engage young children in storybooks.

Children who benefit from this approach are the very young, those whose first language is not English and reluctant readers, especially boys, and it was these groups who were to form the majority of my participants.

PROPS

Now I had to make my props. Finding the eight cuddly toys I needed did not take too long, although camels are not quite so readily available as lions and frogs!

Then I started matching up cardboard boxes and baskets of all shapes and sizes to the animals they were to hold, before the cutting, painting and decorating began. The hardest container to source was one tall enough to accommodate the giraffe, but a long box that had once housed a full-length mirror turned out to be perfect for the job.

I wanted to recreate the boxes from the story as closely as possible, so every detail was copied, with lines and nail heads drawn on to look like wooden planks, doors and lids cut and fitted to open in the right direction, cage bars and fastenings made, and all the labels printed and positioned to match those in the book.

The day before the walk, I took a stroll around the park to plan the route, with the intention of moving the group from place to place between each page of the story and holding a mini story and rhyme session at each one.

An area of tall trees looked ideal for meeting and talking about the giraffe, some long grass suited the snake, and a cluster of small trees and open grassland made good habitats for the monkey, elephant and lion.

In the absence of any real water, a blue blanket turned into a simple pond for the frog, and a scattering of sand was all that was needed to make our camel feel at home. Once all

the locations had been identified, I found a central point to hide the boxes, and everything was ready.

ON THE DAY

On the day, the sun was shining, the grass was dry enough to sit on without having to carry rugs, and I had managed to recruit a willing 'zookeeper' to run back and forth delivering and returning boxes.

As we moved around the park and the boxes were opened one by one, we sang about Nellie the elephant, Alice the camel, speckled frogs diving into a pool and monkeys jumping on the bed. We listened to a super snake poem, read a story that told us how the giraffe got his long neck and used hand-held mirrors to recreate an old fable about a lion who saw his own reflection in a well and thought it was a rival beast. The afternoon was topped off with a touchy-feely book about pets and a visit from our surprise guest - a real-life dog called Bailey.

Everyone had a great time, handling the boxes and props, learning a little about each animal and what to consider before taking on a pet and joining in with the songs. For some children, it was their first encounter with a real dog, but they all bravely came forward to give him a pat. There was a real community feel to the whole event, which I hope will also give parents some ideas for interactive storytelling at home, encourage them to seek out more exciting stories at their local library, and help the children to discover the magic of books.

Viv Hampshire is a library outreach worker for Barra Hall Children's Centre and Hillingdon Libraries.

MORE INFORMATION

• There are various editions of Dear Zoo. The special 30th anniversary edition is published by Puffin. Visit www.amazon.co.uk for more options