The zoo The inside story

Author Payne (a TikTok-famed zookeeper) takes readers behind the scenes of an unnamed zoo, explaining how staff and volunteers feed, train, and care for the animals over the course of a day. Readers are also introduced to the variety of jobs available at the zoo as well as its role in promoting conservation and environmental protection efforts. Appealing soft-toned illustrations depict a variety of happy, healthy zoo residents and their human caretakers and visitors. (c) Copyright 2025. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A behind-the-scenes zoo tour, with introductions to a variety of animals and the workers charged with keeping them fed, healthy, and happy. A zoo employee herself with a viral following, Payne leads young visitors through a typical day at a generic zoological park, from an early planning meeting and a morning spent shoveling giraffe poop to a quick jaunt to the nursery ("one of the most popular places in the zoo") and a night guard's view of snoozing wildlife on a multiscreen display. In between, she offers glimpses of dozens of residents from aardvarks to sea turtles, which Deming depicts with reasonable fidelity, though many seem to smile or bear anthropomorphic expressions. Payne underscores the work that zoos do with rescued and rare animals. Readers may be surprised at the amount of training zoo animals receive; some are taught to station (or position) themselves a certain way to be X-rayed, to present paws for inspection, or to open their mouths at a hand gesture for dental exams. The racially and culturally diverse human cast includes groups of visitors but focuses mostly on workers and their tasks, from feeding and providing toys or other stimulation to tending the gift shop and running outreach programs. A wide-ranging zoological overview. (glossary, index)(Nonfiction. 6-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.