Macmillan marks Dear Zoo milestone

Rod Campbell pictured above can hardly believe that Dear Zoo, the beloved lift-the-flap book for toddlers, is turning 40 this year. Macmillan has just released a golden anniversary edition of the story, first published in 1982, that encourages young readers to lift flaps in order to find out which animal the zoo has sent them.

“If at that stage someone had said we would celebrate 40 years, I would have said ‘Don’t be daft’”, says Campbell. His famous title has sold 2.5 million copies through Nielsen BookScan, but 13 million in total (according to Macmillan), and is as beloved as Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Eric Hill’s Spot among titles that have been published for very young children. 

Campbell was, in fact, partly inspired by Spot. He was excited about what flaps could do within a children’s book and realised that several things are key: children really like reading about animals; the flaps have to be necessary to the story; and the ending is very important.

What interests me is drawing the child into the book for the first time. It’s a question of making a bridge between a toy and a book. Novelty is so important. It’s an important step in bridging that gap

“There has to be resolution of some kind, like going to bed. They understand that. Or something exciting,” he says. “Then it was a question of choosing the animals… and if you write to the zoo to get a pet they are going to send things that are totally inappropriate, so [I thought] maybe it should end with a pet. That was basically it.”

Chance meeting

Campbell fell into making children’s books (he describes himself as a “book creator”, saying, “I make something entire, all the bits work together”) after doing a PhD in chemistry and various odd jobs, including moving paintings for galleries. He also harboured a desire to paint and it was a chance meeting at a dinner party that led to his sketches being shown to a publisher. 

When it comes to making books for children who cannot yet read, Campbell has a deep and instinctive understanding about what makes his fans tick. The repetition within Dear Zoo is important, he says, because the child understands they are safe. “The animals are so-called ‘wild animals’ so you can pretend they are going to leap out and eat you up, but they don’t. That’s really joyous.” 

The child also comes to learn the text even though they can’t read it, he says, recounting an anecdote about a visit to a school, where he was surprised to see Dear Zoo on a table offering books that children could take home and read. When he asked why it was there, the teacher said the pupils liked to take it home and read it to their younger siblings. And if the pupils hadn’t yet learned to read, they would still take it home and pretend to read the story out, because they knew it so well. 

“Now I can see that what interests me is drawing the child into the book for the first time. It’s a question of making a bridge between a toy and a book,” he says. “Novelty is so important. It’s an important step in bridging that gap.”