There's a Zoo in Room 22
I did not have high hopes when I opened this book.
Another alphabet book...nooooooooo! Alphabet books are so formulaic -– their authors tend to get so transparently desperate when they reach X and Z -– and by definition they go on for '26 letters', pushing the limits of both adult and child endurance.
And in rhyme...double noooooooo! As I see it, there's Dr. Seuss, and then there's the mass of ordinary would-be rhymesters, who torment exhausted parents with their predictable pairings. The book's banal opening couplet didn't reassure me much: "We asked Miss Darling, 'May we get/A truly awesome classroom pet?'"
But once the book launched into its laundry list of animals -– including such unlikely classroom choices as a jaguarundi, lemur, quahog (a type of clam, I learned), and zorilla (a type of skunk, I also learned) -– I had been completely won over.
In a different era, Judy Sierra might have been a writer of light verse for dissipated adults. But since light verse has been out of style for decades (you can't even find it in Reader's Digest anymore), children's books are the only outlet for such sophisticated wordplay and wry humor. In the entry for "B," for example, about Boring Beetle Bill, Sierra uses the double meaning of "boring" to amusing effect: "Bill Beetle has a boring job now," the rhyme concludes, "He's our pencil sharpener."
"E" is another standout example. The rhyme in its entirety: "Please don't ask to feel/Our electric eel/Because, if you bug him/We cannot unplug him."
There's an enjoyable anti-authoritarian streak running through this book: "T," for "Turkey Tom," made me laugh out loud. A turkey truck escapee, Tom needs a disguise to survive Thanksgiving, so the class dresses him in a suit and tie: "We thought he looked invincible/Tom wandered down the hall and now/He's our assistant principal." Similarly, a few letters on comes Vincent Vulture, who's "seeking carcasses to crunch." Eventually Miss Darling manages to lure him with "a three-week-old school lunch."
The book ends with the stinky zorilla: "And since we got him, just why is it/No one ever comes to visit?" The final two lines of the book, asking the reader to suggest a more appropriate pet that starts with Z, could be a fun excuse for a dictionary research project.
