Zoe’s Rescue Zoo 7 – The Pesky Polar Bear

Amelia Cobb's The Pesky Polar Bear is a Rescue Zoo story for 5 year olds about a new arrival who never stops talking.

What happens

Zoe Parker lives in a cottage on the grounds of the Rescue Zoo, where her mum is the vet. She has a secret. She can understand every squeak and bark the animals make, and they understand her.

Her Great-Uncle Horace comes home through the zoo gates in a shiny red car with a trailer rumbling along behind it. Inside is a polar bear cub, eight weeks old, all the way from a zoo in California.

Snowy tumbles out, takes one look at the world and belts off in the wrong direction to say hello to the gazelles and the llamas.

The trouble starts when she meets Bella. Bella is the polar bear who has had that big snowy enclosure to herself for a year. She's quiet, she's tidy and she likes things the way they are.

Snowy talks. And talks. Every time Bella opens her mouth to answer, Snowy is already off again about the brilliant show she wants them to perform.

Meanwhile Zoe is trying to organise a surprise birthday party for her mum, and she rather needs both bears in a good mood for it.

What's so nice about this one is how small and real the problem is. Nobody is wicked. Snowy is little and excited and desperate for the big bear to like her. Bella is just fed up with being talked over.

Any child who has had a new baby arrive, or a very chatty friend attach themselves at school, will recognise the whole thing.

It's a warm, chatty read with plenty to giggle at. Zoe carries a mouse lemur called Meep in her coat pocket and asks every animal she passes for birthday ideas. The dolphin suggests a ball. The macaws suggest a wooden perch. Snappy the crocodile suggests a new toothbrush, because he's very proud of his teeth.

There's also Mr Pinch, the zoo manager, who says no to absolutely everything and has to be talked round.

One thing to know. Snowy goes off her food when she's unhappy, and Zoe's mum explains that not eating is genuinely dangerous for a cub that small. It's brief and it's handled gently, but a soft-hearted child may want to talk about it.

What to read next

If your reader takes to Zoe and Meep, The Lucky Snow Leopard is in the library too. That one lands at Christmas, with a young snow leopard who isn't at all sure he wants to be a big brother.