Silly Zoo Is All I Can Say is available soon!

As we get closer to releasing our latest title,  Silly Zoo is All I Can Say, we cannot help but think about how it has brought back so many memories of our visits to the Zoo with our children. We have had so many wonderful experiences at the zoo that it was not possible to include them all in the book. We are sure, though, that you and your children will be reminded of your own memories of a time at the Zoo when a funny animal did that crazy thing right in front of you.

How Silly Zoo came to life with illustrations telling part of the story

Our zoo story has been sitting idle for years just waiting for the right person to come along and tell the story with pictures. The whole process developed quickly over the past few months, as Len DiSalvo  worked his magic by coming up with some fantastic illustrations. Sometimes Len had a different interpretation of the animals in the story. Understanding his perspective was the fun part because we knew what we envisioned  but sometimes you just have to let the artist do his thing. Each time we received an email that contained Len’s new sketches, we waited until we could open them together so that we could measure each other’s reactions to the various sketches. Some sketches were an instant hit, while others needed a tweak or two. Any changes were to let Len know exactly what we were thinking when we were putting words on paper. What a process! It was an exciting time as with each new email, we were able to see the book take shape.  We still laugh at the rhino sketch with the rhino looking at the sign “white rhino” with that puzzled look on his face and question marks!

Silly Zoo has factual information on the animals as well

As the illustrations came together we were also adding facts about the animals for readers to have a chance to learn a little more about their favorite animal.   This was a fun, educational experience as we both learned a lot about the different animals. Did you know that a hippo can actually walk on the bottom of the river bed, no bridge necessary here? The strange thing about all the facts for the different animals was that sometimes, very specific facts were actually different from one source to the other. So this naturally led to more research. As far as the activities to add we simply thought about the fun, different things we did with our kids: drawing pictures, word games, and making up stories.

Use Silly Zoo to connect with your little one

The next time you put your children to sleep have them start a story by selecting their favorite zoo animal. Ask them to tell that animal’s story…what they like to do, who their friends are, where their family is and let your child pick where the story goes. Let his imagination go from there.

Our favorite bedtime ritual was to read a short book at bedtime and tell one of our favorite stories. Does your child  have a have a favorite bedtime story or book?