Reviews for Mary Anne and the Zoo Mystery

The average rating for Mary Anne and the Zoo Mystery based on 2 reviews is 1.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-05-19 00:00:00 Kid Zymurgy in this FIRST EVER NON-Ellen Miles-PENNED MYSTERY (written by my least favorite ghostwriters, Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner) the 8th graders at sms are assigned to groups for a project studying animals (/a contest -- the group with the best project wins tickets to a seaworld-like place). most kids choose to study animals at the zoo, notably the gorillas visiting from another zoo, one of whom knows ASL. animal cages at the zoo keep being found open, with animals occasionally escaping. turns out that it's the zoo's second-in-command doing it in an attempt to make the head of the zoo look bad (she was an external hire and he thought he should've been given that job instead. plus, in a subtexty way, he's a dude and doesn't think women should be in charge). also mary anne is partnered in the assignment with alan gray, who keeps competing with logan, and mary anne is just SO SENSITIVE that she can't deal with them not getting along. meanwhile, there is an elephant living in a mall or something and there's a campaign to have him transferred to a zoo (sort of like the human side of The One and Only Ivan/the true story it's based on). the bsc have a whole free babar campaign including an "elephant walk" to raise funds. it works, and babar ends up getting sent to a zoo in florida. highlights: -this is both a highlight and a lowlight (you will see it expressed differently in each section). this book is FULL of potential evidence and red herringy plot points. there are a few very obvious twists, but even after you figure them out they are still red herrings. -at one point they go to charlotte's house and find stacey there babysitting her. I LOVE this. stacey is tough as nails, and kristy of course freaks out about not being in control of everything/not having a complete monopoly on all babysitting in stoneybrook. -one of the potential suspects is a couple of people going around in matching jumpsuits talking about the cost of various animals and using their latin names. turns out they're helping some "eccentric tycoon" (their words, not mine) set up a zoo on his estate (don't ask me why the protesters aren't protesting that instead of the public zoo). anyway, I'm picturing this: -alexander kurtzman wins the contest! claud is upset because he's so uncreative, "I mean...he carries that briefcase..." I love a good ol' alexander kurtzman reference, because all I know about him is he's the only 8th grader who carries a briefcase instead of a backpack. lowlights: -the red herrings I spoke about in the highlights are mostly just loose ends or pointless plot points that don't serve a real purpose. the info keys the kids get that look exactly like the staff keys to the cages SHOULD have meant somebody stole somebody's key, but really it was a staff member opening cages in the first place. the gorilla who knew ASL SHOULD have meant that matt braddock communicated with her and was able to solve the mystery that way, but the gorilla only kept signing the sign for food. it's as though jahnna and malcolm were told that a mystery has a lot of plot points to throw you off, but they've never actually read a mystery to know that those plot points have to actually contribute, be interesting, be complex, be SOMETHING. -there are all these people protesting the zoo (another red herring). meanwhile babar the elephant is being kept in like a mall or something in an enclosure that bears no resemblance to his home. who are these idiots protesting a zoo when there is something OBVIOUSLY worse going on? sounds like the work of peta -all the students get info keys which are replicas of the zoo keys used to enter the animal cages. this is COMPLETELY IDIOTIC, and OF COURSE will lead to the keys getting swapped. come ON. -gorilla signs that she knows who let the emu out of its cage but then signs food. reading this, I wondered if the person's name sign was similar to food or if it was mr. chester (the second in command guy at the zoo) because he feeds them? turns out it WAS mr. chester letting animals out, but he hadn't been the one who let the emu out (it was howie, mary anne's project partner, being a total idiot). huh? this could've been such a cool plot point but they spoiled it. -they need to borrow a boom box for the elephant walk but only stacey has a good one. claud says that they can't call her because they aren't speaking to her. really? claud is gonna be that petty and dumb? -they end up asking becca to ask charlotte to ask stacey (and I need to remind myself that the bsc members are CHILDREN), so she says yes but then insists on bringing it herself. kristy is grumpy about her being there. I hate these bratty teenagers so much sometimes. -mr. chester is trying to let the gorillas out but then they grab him. turns out it was two guys who worked at the zoo in gorilla costumes. HUH? I'm pretty sure people in gorilla costumes don't look like gorillas. I mean, that's what the kids in the hall taught me at least. dawn outfit: -"Moments later she appeared dressed in a pair of jeans, a purple-and-white cotton baseball jersey, and a purple sun visor." snacks in claudia's room: -pretzels (n.s.) -oreos in a shoebox

Review # 2 was written on 2015-03-24 00:00:00 Robert Haines Mary Anne tries to solve a rash of zoo animal escapes. The eighth-graders are assigned a group science project where they get passes to the zoo in order to write up animal observations. While there, Mary Anne hears about / arrives late to a series of animal pen escapes, but, just to be clear, the animals are all docile and easily returned to their habitats by the zookeepers, and there is never any danger at any point. After some mostly irrelevant rigmarole involving zoo keys (the zoo gives out promotional keys to unlock information kiosks which, the director takes pains to inform them, look EXACTLY LIKE her master key!! wait, what?), the BSC basically guesses at the culprit and informs the zoo director, who is all yup you're right good job kids. Then she allows them to participate in a sting operation. I'm not surprised the zoo is in financial trouble; they're probably the defendant in several hundred lawsuits. In a subplot, Mary Anne is troubled to hear about a baby elephant who is being held in a pen in a shopping center, so Kristy whips up a townwide walkathon including permitting and sign-off from the mayor in about a week. There is some mild uncomfortable discussion of are zoos really that different. This is not particularly resolved. This book was boring, awkwardly paced, and generally unfun to read, and the more I think about it, the less I like it. The plotlines are unbelievable without being interesting. Most of the action happens offstage, and centers around one-off adult characters who are not developed in any way, and nothing really connects to the characters we do know. There is one almost interesting part where Jessi and Matt Braddock try to question a signing gorilla, but it doesn't come to much. Wouldn't that have been a cool book if it was all about Jessi using her language skills to befriend a gorilla and gradually figuring out that he's more intelligent than he seems, you just have to know how to approach the information? That is not the book we got. Lingering Questions: Why did the school call a giant, over-the-top assembly just to announce an eighth-grade science project, and why did they bother to have a chimpanzee be present?? They didn't really use him at all, and it must have been terrifying for him, and where did they get the budget anyway? Wait, they read out the assignments--every single team of three in the entire eighth grade--during the assembly? They couldn't have posted them, or waited until the students got back to their classrooms? What was the chimp doing during all of this? Why did they ban use of books for this assignment? The rules are "observation only" (plus, I guess, the background info you can get from the zoo kiosks), and at one point Alan includes some facts in his report which he looked up and it's this huge problem. Surely the teachers WANT the kids' observations to spark enough curiosity that they actually want to look things up. What is the significance of the berry stains even supposed to be? Mary Anne keeps acting like seeing berry stains in various places constitutes some sort of clue, but they're transparently irrelevant. So there are berries around the zoo. Anyone could get in them. It would be MARGINALLY interesting if there were berries only IN the pen so that stains could possibly lead a trail to someone who had been in the pen and therefore was the culprit, but even then, there are people who legitimately could have been in the pens (zookeepers), and also, the text makes it clear that there are some in and some out of the pens, so it's a total waste of time to even think about this. Why would a zoo "hide" some of its information behind "keys"? I don't get how that remotely makes sense as a promotional move (even leaving aside the "coincidence" that they could end up with the master key without realizing it because it is IDENTICAL to the fake keys). ARE zoos wrong? Author Gratefully Acknowledges: Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner Revised Timeline: This was released in April 1995, simultaneous with Dawn and the School Spirit War; its position in the mythos is confirmed by it occurring during Stacey's absence from the BSC. So this would be in the spring of sophomore year of college, according to my previous calculations. I guess sophomore year is a fine time to have an internship or summer job at the zoo, and that's something that animal lover and child educator Mary Anne might sign on for.