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Summary
Summary
The celebrated John Burningham opens the door to a child's secret adventure in this picture-book classic.
What if you noticed a door in your bedroom that wasn't there before? And what if it led to a passage to . . . the zoo? You might want to take just one little bear back to your room with you, or maybe just all the smaller animals. But how could you resist the penguins and the tigers and the birds? In this classic child's fantasy featuring John Burningham's delightfully expressive artwork, an unlocked door leads to pandemonium -- and one little girl's formidable voice reins in an entire menagerie.
Author Notes
John Burningham was born in Farnham, United Kingdom on April 27, 1936. After two and a half years of non-military service as a conscientious objector, he graduated from Central School of Art with distinction in 1959. Before becoming a children's author and illustrator, he made puppets for Yoram Gross's animation film Joseph the Dreamer and was commissioned to produce a number of posters for London Transport.
Burningham's first picture book, Borka: The Adventures of a Goose with No Feathers, was published in 1963 and won the Kate Greenaway Medal. His other books included Humbert, Avocado Baby, Oi! Get Off Our Train, Courtney, Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present, Come Away from the Water, Shirley, England, Cloudland, France, and There's Going to Be a Baby written with his wife and fellow illustrator Helen Oxenbury. He also illustrated Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1964 and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows in 1983. He received the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1970 for Mr. Gumpy's Outing, the Kurt Maschler award in 1984 for Granpa, and the Booktrust lifetime achievement award in 2018 with Oxenbury. Burningham died on January 4, 2019 at the age of 82.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
With his characteristically diffident line, Burningham (Picnic) draws Sylvie, a resourceful girl who discovers a door in her room that leads directly to the zoo. She's not interested in visiting; instead, she offers hospitality. "Sylvie asked a little bear to come back with her. He did and slept in her bed." The bandy-legged bear cub, seen holding Sylvie's hand as she leads him home, looks a bit hesitant, but the next page shows the two blissfully asleep under Sylvie's duvet. As long as Sylvie remembers to bring the animals back to the zoo, and to close the door before she leaves for school, the nighttime exchanges can continue. Penguins are bathed and dried, assorted tropical birds doze on the furniture, and a mother tiger spends the night in an armchair. With hushed colors and a gossamer touch, Burningham provides just enough conflict to keep things interesting, especially when Sylvie forgets to close the door one morning. The result is a story that offers much of the same marvelous drollery as Philip and Erin Stead's A Sick Day for Amos McGee. Ages 3-7. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
"All I have to do is leave you at home when I go out for a while and it looks as if you had the whole zoo in here!" cries Sylvie's mother. Actually, there had been a zoo's worth of creatures in the living room, though not by Sylvie's intent. Nights ago, she found the zoo down a passage behind a door in her bedroom. She's been bringing animals back for the night, but -- being an orderly child -- just a few at a time, and "only the smaller ones." She did settle a mother tiger in a chair while her cub shared the bed, but ruled out penguins because they splashed too much. Then, just once, after Sylvie forgot to close the door, a whole crowd of creatures trooped in to watch television; still, she tried to clean up after them. With the true Burningham touch, Sylvie's arrangements have both the impeccable childlike logic and the solid reality of the best fantasy. His loose, masterfully limned drawings are touched with scrumptious, harmonious hues -- pure blue with elegant chartreuse, a black-raspberry chair with turquoise legs, various animals in benignly soft browns and grays. Just the thing to pair with other mayhem scenarios such as in The Cat in the Hat. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
A mysterious door appears in the wall of Sylvie's bedroom. When she opens it, she finds a zoo with lots of animals, a colorful, friendly bunch, looking at her. Sylvie brings the bear back to sleep with her; then all the animals want to come. When the penguins visit, they make a mess in the bath; the monkey takes things; the baby rhino doesn't fit in the bed. One morning, Sylvie forgets to shut the door, and when she returns from school, all the animals are in the living room. It seems that when she opened the door, giving them an inch . . . Finally, the disquieted girl gives a great yell, and the animals skedaddle, leaving Sylvie to clean up. Pen-and-ink drawings feature lines that fairly quiver, capturing the excitement and action. The kicker: when Mother arrives home, she accuses Sylvie: It looks as if you had the whole zoo in here! An imaginative romp.--McDermott, Jeanne Copyright 2014 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-What could be more wonderful for Sylvie than discovering a secret door in her bedroom that leads down a passageway right to a zoo? After taking home a little bear for a sleepover the first night, the other animals all want to do the same. The smaller animals fit right in, while others are less successful (the penguins make a splashy mess, the monkeys tend to steal things, the rhino is too big for the bed). All goes well until, in a rush to get to school one morning, Sylvie forgets to close the secret door. When she comes home, she finds all of the animals sprawled about the living room watching TV. She promptly shoos them back and gets the house almost presentable when her dismayed mom returns and shouts, "All I have to do is leave you at home while I go out for awhile and it looks as if you had the whole zoo in here." The sketchy pen, pencil, pastel and watercolor illustrations are set against expansive white space that frames the action from page to page. Text and art work seamlessly together in this tale that mirrors the secret dreams of many imaginative children.- Marge Loch-Wouters, La Crosse Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
What could be more exciting than discovering a hidden door in your bedroom that opens to a secret passageway to the zoo?With characteristic simplicity and economy of line, veteran illustrator Burningham conveys the wonder of Sylvie's discovery, thus fulfilling a common childhood fantasyto bring real, live zoo animals into your room and have them sleep in your bed. Sylvie visits the zoo every evening, chooses an animal and brings it to her room. Some are small enough to fit comfortably in her bed. Others are more problematic; a monkey steals things, the penguins splash noisily, and even the baby elephant is too big. Pandemonium erupts when one day Sylvie forgets to close the secret door and finds the animals crowded into her living room after school. The shy little girl finds a big voice within herself and bellows at the animals, who exit in a hurry. Sylvie rushes to clean up the mess before her mother gets home, setting up an innocent parental punch line: "[I]t looks as if you had the whole zoo in here!" Luckily, the way to the zoo remains a secret, and the animals can still visit her at night.As in so many of his other books, Burningham's appeal lies in his ability to invent a fantasy scenario available only to young children, accomplishing it again here with consummate grace.(Picture book. 2-5) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
