The Great Zoo Break - Neil Hollander Book

As a writer, Neil Hollander has dedicated many working hours writing books for the young ones. Some of those books are now part of the collection '100 best children's books'. One of those books is and 'The Great Zoo Break.'

The Great Zoo Break is a kids book originally published in 1982. It is a story about a hippo, a giraffe, a monkey and a crocodile living in a zoo in New York. One day, while the zoo-keeper sleeps, they decide to break out of their cages and start out for the airport to catch a plane to Africa. Lacking the money needed to buy tickets they proceed to entertain in the town to earn their fares before departing. The book displays Susanna Gretz's illustrative talents and Neil Hollander's writing skills.


In the zoo in New York live diverse animals. There are four main animals very much loved by all the visitors: the hippo, the giraffe, the monkey and the crocodile. The day when is hippo's birthday he tells his friends his greatest wish which is to go into the wilderness. Although no one supports him at the start, he still makes a plan to make his wish come trues. One night, when everyone's asleep, the hippo slipped out and went to catch a flight to Africa. When others realize that he escaped the zoo, they went looking for him. While they look for the hippo, it goes to the station. They find him, but the police come and start chasing them across the New York.

When the monkey wakes up, he realizes that it is in a box on a boat sailing the ocean. Next to him also in the box are the giraffe, the monkey and the crocodile. They find themselves in a boat sailing to Africa where they will be transferred into a zoo in Kenya. They're trying to escape and while trying they went overboard.

When day breaks, the hippo finds itself stranding on a shore. All day calling his friends, but the next day to find them. Hippo concludes that on the island of Kenya. They hear the music and think that there are people. When they arrive, they realize that on this music dancing some never before seen animals. They at first thought that this evil beast, but after they are later mimosa. They tell them they are on Africa.

Neil Hollander is widely accepted as one of the most popular American writers today. Almost all of the books he wrote in the past 3 decades of active writing have become bestseller, being translated into several languages.

Hollander was born in 1939 in New York City. After completing his education from University of Washington and obtaining a BA from the Academy for theater and film he joined a crew on a sailing boat and went to travel around the world. While traveling across the seas Hollander had a chance to visit many places and get familiar with different cultures. Ever since he's been traveling and living in different countries and only the last ten years Hollander spent living in Paris.

Having spent a lot of years sailing the open sea, Hollander became an exceptional sailor. All the experience and knowledge gathered on his voyages would help him later when Hollander starts writing his books about the life on sea. This books about the working sail were later used as a script for his movies like 'Sea Devils' and 'The Last Sailors: The Final Days of Working Sail.' For those not familiar with Hollander's wide range of productive professions, he is also known for his documentary movies. Almost all of them are signed by him as a director and for some of them also wrote the screenplay. As narrators for Hollander's films can be seen the names of stars like Orson Welles, Anjelica Huston, Henry Rollins and other.