Book Summary:
In this rhyming story, a librarian named Molly McGrew drove her bookmobile into the zoo. As she starts to read, animals become attracted to her. She then decides to introduce all the animals to reading and all kinds of books. She finds "just right" books for every type of animal at the zoo. All the animals start to love reading and "going wild" about books. Some of the animals even start writing their own books.
APA Reference of Book:
Sierra, J. (2004). Wild About Books. New York, NY: Random
House Children's Books.
Impressions:
The great illustrations caught my attention from the beginning. They are very detailed. In fact, I had to look through the book again after I was done reading just to catch all the details within the illustrations.
The text is intriguing as well. The musical language (rhyming and providing a cadence) strengthens the story and makes the lines easy to remember. For example, the author writes, "She even found waterproof books or the otter, who never went swimming without Harry Potter." The language is playful and full of puns. It contains many jokes within the text as well as within the illustrations.
I believe this book opens up the imagination of young readers as well as gets children excited about reading. Wild About Books also shows children how to respect books and teaches them that readers all have different interests.
I think that although many young readers would enjoy this book (due to the rhyming, illustrations, and jokes), they might not get the full effect if they don't understand certain puns. But I believe many ages of readers (even adults) would love to read this book.
Professional Review:
"In a rhyming text that is both homage to and reminiscent of Dr. Seuss's epic rhyming sagas, Sierra spins the tale of librarian Molly McGrew who mistakenly drives the bookmobile to the zoo. The various denizens are attracted to her read-clouds and soon are reading, writing, rhyming, and going wild about these wonderful books. With Molly's encouragement, the animals start their own Zoobrary so they can read to their hearts' content. Sierra's text has a wacky verve and enough clever asides and allusions to familiar characteristics to satisfy bibliophiles of all ages. The author's sense of playfulness in plot and language ("llamas read while eating their llunches"; a hippo wins the "Zoolitzer Prize") creates a lavish literary stew. Comic moments abound, including bugs writing haiku and unruly bears licking illustrations right off the page (until Molly gently teaches them how to treat books properly). Brown's cheerful, full-color illustrations stretch his trademark art with ever-so-slightly stylized spreads that are rich in pattern, texture, and nuance. On each spread, he plays with perspective and layout to create an electric sense of excitement as the animals discover what kids have known for a long time - reading is fun!"
Louch-Wouters, M. (2010). Review of the book Wild about books, by J.
Sierra. School Library Journal. Retrieved from https://learn.unt.edu/
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group_id=_81_1
Library Uses:
In the library, this book could be used at the beginning of the year to teach students about how to pick out books according to their interests. Students will learn that it's important to pick books that are interesting to them (just like the animals picked out books that interested them). After the librarian reads the book, the students could practice picking out books that are interesting to them. They could take turns talking about why they chose their specific books.
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