Of Zoos and Nerds

On occasion I find it necessary during a chaotic workday to paraphrase Dr. Seuss, saying "If I ran the zoo, there's no telling what I would do!"  If they would only put me in charge, I'd run this place differently!  Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo is often credited with the first appearance of the word "nerd", a term my family doesn't hesitate the use in referring to me.  I tend to use the word only as a brand name, referring to one of my favorite candies.

My earliest memory is of my third birthday.  A fragment of one of my birthday gifts, a book with descriptions of wild animals and black and white drawings of them, has survived.  Over the years the cover of this book and a number of pages disappeared.  But recently I did some research and discovered that the book was Francis Wardle's Zoo Book, published in London in the early 1950s.  Intrigued, I managed to find a used (and intact!) copy for sale on the Internet.  It was very interesting to see - for the first time in 50 years - an intact copy, including many pages my battered copy no longer has.  The cover does not look familiar, but it's a dustjacket and it probably didn't last long in my little hands.

I loved this book when I was little.  I asked my parents not long ago what caused them to give a three-year old a book like this.  I couldn't read it.  The animals are arranged by their taxonomic Order in the animal kingdom.  (I wouldn't know artiodactyla even if I could read!)  And it wasn't even published in the States.  But they couldn't remember.  The book remains both a mystery and a memory.