Supermarket Zoo

Supermarket Zoo is a charming and humorous picture book which is perfect for EYFS and Year One classrooms.

The story centres around a little boy called Albie, who has to go supermarket shopping with his mum. This trip, to his surprise, is to a very special sort of supermarket where he can buy animals of all sorts of shapes and sizes. It is such a unique premise for a story and one which can link to a wide range of EYFS topics and interests. The routine of supermarket shopping is highly relatable to young children and there are lots of scenes which can spark discussion as part of ‘Personal, Social and Emotional Development’ activities; for example, Why does Albie dislike shopping so much at the start of the story? To support ‘Knowledge and Understanding of the World’, the animals and their real habitats and diets can be explored and there are so many ‘Mathematical Development’ opportunities; from counting the animals on mum’s list to weighing and measuring the different animals that Albie puts in the trolley.

Of course, the humour in the book links to the silliness of a supermarket zoo. The funny smell and enormous trolley sets the scene perfectly for lots of weird and wonderful encounters within. Albie’s interactions with his mum mirror familiar interactions between parents and children in this situation and it is never explained whether his trip really happened or it was all in his imagination, which is fantastic point for discussion afterwards.

The book also uses some really effective vocabulary choices to emphasise the size of the animals that are being put into Albie’s trolley. This makes it a superb choice to support the development and extension of language models within the EYFS class.

The illustrations are delightful and have enough detail to be able to compare with real life versions of the animals (with one spectacular exception!). It’s a lovely story and would make a great addition to any shopping or animal topic as well as being a super book to share with a class of younger children for story time.