Class Two at the Zoo

An awful warning for every school trip! Jarman's richly comical poem of Class Two's encounter with an anaconda is reminiscent of Belloc's Cautionary Tales. Chapman's bright, funny, lively illustrations bring it vividly to life with visual detail additional to the text itself.

While we might not use it for the detail of its zoological information (anacondas do swallow their prey whole, but only after squeezing them to death, which thankfully doesn't happen in this story), it offers a rich resource for literacy work.

In addition to the rhyme, which being irregularly placed enlivens rather than stultifying, there is alliteration, and assonance, and excellent use of interesting and graphic descriptors. Class Two incumbents everywhere will find this a delightfully terrifying text!