Extreme reading among the zoo animals
Thursday 23 October 2008
Two schoolgirl bookworms found some novel places to browse, by taking their homework to ZSL Whipsnade Zoo for some ‘extreme reading’.
© ZSL
Jessica Ackers and Francesca Cross, both 10, let their imagination run riot when their school asked pupils to think of ‘unusual, funny or surprising’ locations for reading a book, to celebrate Children’s Book Week.
The pair, from Oakwood Primary School in St Albans, wrote to ZSL Whipsnade Zoo and initially asked to read while sitting on an elephant or giraffe. ‘If our thoughts are too dangerous to carry out we would love it if you could suggest something else for us to do’, they asked.
Whipsnade were happy to oblige with the latter option and keepers allowed the girls to test their nerve by reading among the lively lemurs on lemur island, while being watched over by our female giraffe Savannah and sitting in the elephant paddock.
The girls found the experience amazing and had to use all their concentration skills to keep their eyes on the books and not the animals.
Jessica said: ‘We found the giraffe quite easy as she was eating the leaves but the lemurs were hard!’
‘There were so many of them and they were all around you with their paws on the books!’ added Francesca. Both girls love reading and enjoy fiction books. Francesca had just read an appropriate book called ‘White Giraffe’ by Lauren St John.
