Zucchini Out West

by Barbara Dana

Overview

Zucchini is Billy's pet and his best friend. When biologists at the ASPCA think that Zucchini is a rare black-footed ferret, Billy is in a quandary. He loves animals and does everything he can to help the ecology, but realizes that he can't keep an endangered animal as a pet. Can Billy do the right thing and risk losing Zucchini forever?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062036025
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Series:	Zucchini , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	1 - 12 Years

About the Author

Author, playwright, and actor Barbara Dana spent over a decade researching Emily Dickinson for this book. Her award-winning books for children include Zucchini and Young Joan, a novel based on the girlhood of Joan of Arc. She is also the coeditor of Wider Than the Sky: Essays and Meditations on the Healing Power of Emily Dickinson for adults. Ms. Dana has three grown sons. She lives in South Salem, New York, with her yellow lab, Riley.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 3-5Shy, 10-year-old Billy; his pet ferret, Zucchini; his sister, Emma; and his divorced father visit the prairie in this sequel to Zucchini (HarperCollins, 1982). This episodic tale is the story of that trip, with portions told from the cheery ferret's point of view. The journey gives Billy a chance to spend time with his actor father and to meet the scientists who are working with an endangered species of ferret. The boy wants to find out for certain whether Zucchini is one of that rare breed; if so, he would be forced to hand the animal over to the lab. Five-year-old Emma provides some comic relief to a rather involved plot. Billy's character develops slowly and the adults appear stiff and one-sided. All in all, this is an unexceptional animal adventure. Black-and-white sketches provide some humor. While the book does not have the vitality or charm of Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle (Morrow, 1965) or Lynne Reid Banks's I Houdini (Doubleday, 1988), it will appeal to ferret lovers and fans of the first book.Beth Tegart, Oneida City Schools, NY

School Library Journal

The sequel to Zucchini (1984) finds the ferret, his owner, Billy, and Billy's father and sister driving to Wyoming, where they plan to visit the captive breeding program for the endangered black-footed ferret. But ten-year-old Billy, a worrier in the best of times, has a serious concern: Zucchini looks like a black-footed ferret, and if he is identified as one, Billy won't be allowed to keep him. This gentle book is marred only by the presence of Billy's annoying five-year-old sister, Emma, whose comments are sometimes precocious and make her sound old, but she can't count, doesn't read, and behaves likes a three- year-old. Otherwise the story is a delight, especially the careful line Dana walks—as she did in the first book—in anthropomorphizing Zucchini, whose behavior is animal, but whose "thoughts" are open to readers. The result is an even greater, and rather touching, enhancement of the child-pet bond. Pleasant black-and-white illustrations add to this charming book, which has a great deal of information for animal-loving and environmentally aware children.

Kirkus Reviews