29、Zoo education for children 6 years of age and under – Picture books as a platform

 

Joann C. W. Chang

Taipei Zoological Foundation

 

Although children under six years of age form the main population of zoo visitors, they are also the group lacking zoo education resources. Services provided by zoo volunteers and panels usually only focus on school age children. For youngsters under age six, they have to rely on their caretakers to teach them relevant information when they visit zoos. However these adults might not provide accurate information.
In fact, mistakes can be found even in books for younger readers. Children’s book writers and illustrators love to create animal characters, but often times they do not make adequate efforts to check facts. For example, we have seen black-tailed giant pandas, four legged fireflies, vegetarian moles, tailed gorillas, etc. Because the workload of zoo educators is very demanding, writing books for young readers might be out of question. Proofreading children books and making a recommended booklist would be a better alternative. Holding and using a pencil while reading, checking mistakes, and sending these corrections and recommendations to a publisher will also help to improve the quality of children’s books. Zoo education is a field without boundaries. If picture books can help us facilitate zoo education, zoo educators should help publishers make quality and 100% accurate books for young readers.