LPL Summer reading program a real zoo with Silly Safaris

[July 19, 2017]  LINCOLN - The Lincoln Public Library was a zoo Thursday morning. No, it wasn’t a bunch of readers running around out of control. The zoo was a gaggle of animals brought for the Thursday morning entertainment offered by the summer reading program courtesy of Silly Safaris from Indianapolis.

Thursday morning was week five of the six week summer reading program “Reading by Design” entertainment at the library.

Amazon John from Silly Safaris brought an assortment of animals not only to show the unusual nature of animals from around the world, but to teach the young readers how an animal’s shape and coloring help them survive in nature. With the help of his Boston Terrier, Wofford, John had the kids charged up from the start.

His first animal was a red footed tortoise that not only had a hard shell to protect it from predators, but also huge feet for digging holes that offered it protection from the sun. Amazon John pointed out that a tortoise lives on land unlike a turtle whose habitat is water. Oh, and John was not above a little humor in his act. The tortoise was named Shelly. Get it?

It was love at first sight when Amazon John brought out an adorable white bunny. Its adaptation was also the ability to find shelter in a hole during times of heat and danger, where it lives in a small colony.

A yellow billed kite, a type of hawk from Egypt, has the ability to match the opposing wind speed while it is flying so that it can hover in one spot and check out the landscape below for prey. It then drops out of the sky to try to snag a mouse. Think of it, if the wind is blowing at ten miles per hour, the kite can fly into it at ten miles per hour and not move an inch over the ground. It is sort of like a helicopter that is hovering and from this aerial perch, the kite can survey the ground for prey. Because this kite is from Egypt, its name is Cleopatra. Amazon John had an amazing way of throwing out zingers that had the full house of kids and parents in stitches.

Can you feel the excitement in the air as Amazon John is about to bring out the next animal?

The ugliest specimen in the Silly Safaris bag of animals was a huge bullfrog from Africa named Bubba. Amazon John had two volunteers come up to join him on stage. Each got to hold the giant frog that hides in a pond and waits for prey to come to it. Neither volunteer wanted to kiss the frog to see if it would turn into a prince.

An enormous African bullfrog.

Zane and Ava get ready to hold the bullfrog.

Ava cracks up when John places Bubba the Bullfrog in her hands.

Zane gets his chance to hold Bubba.

These kids are having a blast with Bubba.

Oh no! Ava does not want to kiss the frog to see if Bubba turns into a prince.

When Amazon John pulled a large cloth bag out of his trunk of animals, the kids knew just what was in the mystery bag and shouted out their guess. And you know what? They were spot on. Amazon John had brought a long snake to show them that slowly slithered out of the bag.

Amazon John concluded by displaying an animal that we see scurry around town at night all the time. A possum may seem like an ordinary animal, a pest even, that has adapted to human neighbors, but they do a lot of good. Amazon John described the possum as a superhero because it eats thousands of ticks during its nocturnal roaming looking for food. The possum helps rid our neighborhoods of ticks that may cause all sorts of ailments in humans if bitten.

After concluding his show, Silly Safaris guide Amazon John stayed around for another half hour after his presentation to let all of the young readers in the audience touch each animal. Kids, parents, and a few librarians formed a line that stretched around the entire library waiting for a chance to touch the unusual animals in the Silly Safaris Zoo. And then Amazon John was off to turn his next destination into a zoo.

[Curtis Fox]