Books like The Opposite Zoo
By Il Sung Na
For the kid who loves sneaking around after lights-out, this book turns a closed zoo into the perfect place for a nighttime adventure through pairs of opposites. Playful, bright, and a little mischievous, with a hush of after-hours quiet.
A group of Maasai children sets out across the grasslands of Tanzania, counting animals from one to ten — a leopard, ostriches, giraffes — as they journey through the wild.
A parade of prehistoric giants appears one by one — some big, some small, some horned, some spiked, some with long, long necks and long, long tails.
A little fish paddles through the underwater world, meeting all kinds of fish along the way — spotty, stripy, happy, grumpy, hairy, scary, even curly whirly and twisty twirly.
Two pouncy kittens named Brush and Hush mix buckets of paint trying to make green, splashing their way into pink, orange, and purple instead.
A curious kid heads outside to explore wind firsthand — feeling it push and pull, chasing hats, and figuring out why something you can't see is so easy to feel.
A rhyming tour through the jungle introduces elephants, tigers, giraffes, hippos, leopards, and chimpanzees, each with their own playful verse and a hidden animal to spot on every page.
Bold die-cut shapes stack and overlap page after page, transforming circles, squares, and triangles into nine recognizable zoo animal faces right before your eyes.
A rhyming romp through everything that counts as a house — anthills, dog kennels, corn husks, pea pods — and eventually the surprising idea that a shoe, a mirror, even a word, might have a house too.
A big, friendly bear wanders through the woods noticing colors all around him — inviting little ones to spot matching colors of their own on every page.
A lone trombone starts to play, then a trumpet joins for a duet, a French horn makes it a trio, and instruments keep arriving until a full ten-piece orchestra fills the stage.
A wacky crew of hippos, cats, pigs, and cows count from a quiet One all the way up to a LOUD LOUD LOUD Ten — then back down to quiet One again.
A bright, rhyming romp through a day in the life of birds — from the rooster's dawn crow to the owl's nighttime call — inviting little ones to cheep and tweet along.
