Movin' with the Animals! Zen Zoo: A Yoga Story for Kids by Kristen Fischer

LYLA IS READY.
TO TRY SOMETHING NEW.
CAN SHE LEARN YOGA
FROM FRIENDS AT THE ZOO?

Sure! Animals have all the good moves, so once you've done downward dog, you're ready to go a little wild with your yoga. So little Lyla heads for the zoo.

With her yoga girl pants on, Lyla decides to unroll her mat first in front of a balancing bear.

THIS BALANCING BEAR
GRABS ONTO HIS FEET.
LYLA GRABS ALSO,
AND LIFTS FROM HER SEAT.

And while Lyla is down on all fours, it's easy to slip into a slide like the slithering snakes. Then she moves on to prowl like three lions, and then bends like a quartet of kneeling camels.

Like six crocs, Lyla gets down on her tummy, and when dolphins arch through their jumps, she raises her bottom with her arms out flat--like that!

The gorillas are next, screeching and reaching, but Lyla bends way down to grab her heels and laughs at them. Then Lyla poses with the languid leopards and ends her routine leaping and hopping without stopping with ten frogs in the amphibian enclosure.

Kristen Fischer's just published Zoo Zen: A Yoga Story for Kids (Sounds True, 2017) counts the zoo critters up while leading her little yoga buff through ten poses, loosely modified to match the moves of familiar zoo dwellers. Fischer's choice of zoo animals as pro tem yoga masters give an added incentive to young yoga beginners, and Susi Schaefer's sophisticated palette and exotic collage illustrations make this book delightfully eye-catching to young yoga novices. Says Publishers Weekly, "Parents seeking to introduce yoga to their children should find this an engaging, easy-to-follow resource."