Tiger at the door by Lisa Regan

Ill. by Kelly Caswell. Series: Wild Things. Bloomsbury, 2013. ISBN 9781 4081 7935 2.
(Age: 5+) Warmly recommended. Picture book. Animals. Zoos. This series called Wild Things, published in association with the London Zoo, has animals coming to stay at a family home. Through the pages, the animal is shown being accommodated within a house, with questions about its habitat, sleeping arrangements, food and activities given an airing as the question is always posed about how it would fit in. In funny double page spreads aimed at the very young, the answer is obviously 'not at all', but through this situation, the author is able to show children the animal's specific needs for survival.
Tiger at the door, for example has a tiger coming to stay. Each double page gives one of the tiger's needs and suggests how it could be met. On one page the tiger needs to be hidden as it likes to be camouflaged, and so the tiger is hiding behind a group of trees; its tail and eyes just visible. The following page talks about food, and shows a tiger reading a menu with large animals on it. Because the tiger is the biggest of cats, it needs a large animal to eat, so the suggestion is that you provide a buffalo for its meal. But because it likes its food rotten, it may be good to provide a pond where it can lay down some of its food for later. In this way, the information about the tiger is given in funny bites, with the conclusion that the tiger does not belong in the home. Two pages of information are given, followed by a glossary and a page about the zoos involved in this project, with the last page having the covers of the rest of the books in the series.
Others in this series concern the addition of a Monkey, Penguin, Lion, Giraffe, Hippo, Elephant and Emu, in the home.
Fran Knight