Wild About Books

Sporting colorful cutout animation and a tailor-made-for-libraries storyline, this winsome adaptation of the 2004 picture book Wild About Books, written by Judy Sierra and illustrated by Marc Brown, finds Springfield bookmobile librarian Molly McGrew taking a wrong turn…into the local zoo, where she discovers a whole new clientele. After hearing Molly read a bit of Dr. Seuss out loud, the animals go simply wild about books (with, of course, the usual patron demands—the pandas want more books in Chinese, etc.). Told in rhymed couplets, this delightful paean to a helpful librarian (“She even found waterproofed books for the otters/Who never went swimming without Harry Potter”) and her appreciative users (“The tree kangaroo adored Nancy Drew”) is loads of fun—especially when some of the inhabitants, such as the dung beetle, try their hand at writing haiku (which, of course, quickly attracts a critic in the appropriate form of a scorpion). Ultimately, the library decides to open a branch at the zoo, but for zoo attendees the animals are a little harder to find now—since they're all holed up somewhere reading. Enthusiastically narrated by Catherine O'Hara, with a bouncy soundtrack by Scotty Huff, Wild About Books (which also features cute animated outtakes in the credits) is highly recommended. Aud: K, E, P. (R. Pitman)