Read Zoe’s Rescue Zoo 20 – The Rowdy Red Panda free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Amelia Cobb's The Rowdy Red Panda is a snowy Zoe's Rescue Zoo story for 5 year olds about a new arrival with FAR too much energy.
Zoe lives at the Rescue Zoo, where her mum is the vet. Her best friend is Meep, a tiny mouse lemur who hates the cold and rides around inside her coat. And she has a big secret. She can chat with the animals, and they chat back!
It's snowed overnight and the whole zoo looks like a snow globe. Tomorrow a judge is coming for the Snowy Paws Award, so everyone is busy getting ready. Then Great-Uncle Horace floats in by hot-air balloon with a surprise in his basket. It's a red panda called Ruby. (Meep thought all pandas were black and white.)
Ruby is fluffy, sweet and completely bouncy. On her very first morning she wriggles free, charges through the penguins, streaks across the monkeys' treetops and knocks a lump of snow onto a snow leopard's head.
There's a snow animal contest going on too, and Zoe's twin cousins can't agree on anything. Is it a tiger or a hippo? Nobody knows. Meanwhile grumpy Mr Pinch, the zoo manager, just wants everything neat and tidy before the judge arrives. You can imagine how well that goes.
It's gentle and cheerful, and the story rattles along. Little animal facts are slipped in all the way through. Did you know snow leopards have extra-big paws for walking on snow? Zoe does!
The nicest part is how Zoe works out why Ruby keeps getting into trouble. She isn't naughty. She's on her own in her enclosure and she just wants to join in. That's a kind thing for small children to think about, and it's handled very sweetly.
If your reader loves animals and a bit of mischief, this is a good one to share at bedtime, or for a newer reader to try on their own.
Pip the little penguin has a part to play in this story too. If your reader takes to him, The Puzzled Penguin tells how Pip first came to the zoo, as a chick who has never even seen another penguin (it starts a little sad, as he's all on his own).
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