Read Zoe’s Rescue Zoo 4 – The Silky Seal Pup free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Amelia Cobb's The Silky Seal Pup is a cosy Rescue Zoo story for 5 year olds about a baby seal who's frightened of the dark.
Zoe's mum is the vet at the Rescue Zoo, so Zoe gets to live right in the middle of it. Meep the mouse lemur shares her cottage (and her snacks). And only Zoe can understand what the animals are saying!
This is the fourth Rescue Zoo book. It opens with Zoe swimming with the dolphins after the visitors have gone home. Then a leopard seems to have escaped. (It hasn't. Ruby the parrot is just very good at impressions.)
Back at the cottage, Great-Uncle Horace has a fluffy white bundle on his lap. It's a harp seal pup, only a week old. Zoe holds her like a baby and the pup tells Zoe her name is Star.
That first night Star cries in the kitchen. She doesn't like being left alone in the dark. So Zoe smuggles her upstairs and into her own bed. Meep is not happy about this at all ("There was no room for me. I was getting squished!").
Who hasn't had a small person turn up at the bedroom door in the night? It's a lovely, gentle way into talking about being scared of the dark.
Then Zoe overhears something she wasn't supposed to. The zoo is running out of money and might have to close. All her animal friends would have to go to other zoos. Even Meep.
So Zoe does what Zoe does best. She calls a midnight meeting of every animal in the zoo! Their money-making ideas are hilarious. The lions want a roaring contest with the visitors and the hippos think people might buy their mud.
Star was taken from her home by hunters before she arrived, and the threat of the zoo closing makes Zoe very upset for a while. Neither is dwelt on, but a child who worries about grown-up problems might feel it.
For most young animal lovers it'll be a happy, snuggly read.
If they'd like another baby who needs a bit of help settling in, The Eager Elephant is the next story. A baby elephant arrives who hasn't quite learned to walk properly yet.
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