Winter weather is keeping children from visiting the zoo. So the animals are out of sorts—listless, grumpy, and no longer fun. All except two little friends, a very small hippo and a baby kangaroo. Their hip-hopping, toe-tapping,  and rap-rocking soon has the other animals joining in the hip-aroo beat. "Racoons danced in pairs, baboons danced in troops, and snakes joined the dancers as live hula-hoops." Children's favorite songs get a funny new spin—seals bark out "The seals on the bus go round and round"—as the animals create their very own musical. Young readers and listeners will be amazed and delighted at how the animals chase the winter doldrums by getting along as friends, pooling their talents, and pushing themselves to new heights. After all, these are the same clever animals who learned to read in Judy Sierra's and Marc Brown's Wild About Books , an award-winning New York Times #1 bestselling picture book. ZooZical is sure to inspire some "can do" fun in kindergarten and primary grades. A Letter from Author Judy Sierra I think of my new book, ZooZical , as a little kids’ Broadway musical. The idea came to me a few years ago, after my picture book The Sleepy Little Alphabet was published. I couldn’t wait to read it aloud to the kindergarten classes at the school where my husband was principal. When the children saw the final illustration--twenty-six little letters asleep in twenty-six little beds--they burst out singing “The Alphabet Song.” What fun it would be, I thought, to write a picture book based on classic children’s songs! I knew who the cast and crew of my musical ZooZical would be: the zoo animals from Wild About Books , illustrated by Marc Brown. “Let’s put on a show” is an old and very productive story line. I could picture so many scenes of animals performing. But what would their motivation be? I looked out my office window at gray skies. It had been raining for weeks on end. Might the animals be seeking a cure for the midwinter doldrums? If terrible weather was getting them down, then kids and families were probably staying home, too, and life at the zoo would be bleak without humorous humans to watch. Putting on a show could cheer up the animals, and also bring visitors back to the zoo. I wrote ZooZical in rhymed couplets and triplets, to a Seussian beat (anapestic tetrameter, mostly). I find this meter ideal for storytelling--so perfect, in fact, that it often conjures up parts of a tale as if by magic. As I brainstormed ZooZical , two main characters--a very small hippo and a young kangaroo--hopped into the story, unannounced, as the main characters. They are clever and creative enough to come up with the idea of putting on a musical, and talented enough to play starring roles in the production. Other animals dance and sing to silly versions of old favorites like “Oh My Darling, Porcupine,” “The Seals on the Bus,” and “The Zoo Hokey Pokey.” Everyone discovers that music, creativity, friendship, and cooperation are tip-top antidotes for any sort of doldrums. After many months of work and countless revisions, I emailed the ZooZical manuscript to my editor at Knopf, Janet Schulman, and to the marvelous Marc Brown, who gave it two thumbs and six paintbrushes up. As I write this, Marc is sketching scenes for the third picture book in this series, set at the mythical Springfield Zoo. Starred Review, PublishersWeekly , June 6, 2011: "Teens have Glee, tweens have High School Musical, and with this snappy follow-up to Wild About Books younger siblings can delight in the joy of putting on a show...With humor and gusto, Brown's richly textured folk art–inspired pictures convey the characters' dramatic shift in moods and imbue them with abundant personality. Meanwhile, Sierra's riffs on familiar tunes guarantee that readings will be very musical affairs, with children enthusiastic participants." Judy Sierra  has been writing laugh-out-loud picture books for 25 years. Besides inducing giggles, Judy's books expand children's vocabularies, extol the virtues of kindness, perseverance, and friendship, and celebrate the joy of a life filled with books.  "I write stories and rhymes to entertain children ages four to eight,"  she explains.  "Also, because picture books are shared across generations, I always add a bit of humor and wordplay for adults. I'm very pleased when an online reviewer says they enjoy reading my books to children again and again." Illustrators such as Marc Brown, Melissa Sweet, J. Otto Seibold, Will Hillenbrand, and Stephen Gammell have expanded her work's humor exponentially, creating read-aloud classics like  Wild About Books, Sleepy Little Alphabet, Mind Your Manners B.B. Wolf, Counting Crocodiles,  and  The Secret Science Project That Almost Ate the School Judy Sierra lives in Oregon with her husband Bob and their library-card-carrying poodle, Keiko. Visit her (and Keiko) at  judysierra.net JUDY SIERRA is the author of many critically