Books with title The Greatest Zoo on Earth

The rascals from the world’s friendliest family circus are back in the second installment of this “smafunderful”* fully illustrated series.Everyone knows Sir Sidney’s Circus is the best in the world. But who’s the star of the show? The Circus Times is having a contest to find out. Just thinking about it gives Sir Sidney a worrywart, and it’s quickly clear why. Soon after he goes off to rest, the performers start thinking too much about winning the trophy and not enough about putting on a good show. Meanwhile, it looks as if ringmaster-in-training Barnabas Brambles might need some help managing the crew, so Bert and Gert, the sly brother-and-sister mice who travel with the show, set out to write a book to teach him how it’s done.Does Bert and Gert’s plan work? And who is the star of the circus? All will be revealed in The Greatest Star on Earth.*Kirkus Reviews

Roll up! Roll Up! You have never seen anything like it in your life. The last thing Raymond expected when he went down to his allotment was to be abducted by a flying starfish from Uranus. But these things happen and when he learns that he is being sold as a delicacy in a Venusian auction, he is grateful to be rescued by the travelling circus. But this is not your everyday circus, this is Professor Merlin's Greatest Show off Earth, with ancient exotic performers who travel between the inhabited worlds in a Victorian steamship. The professor has a job for Raymond: release the 200 people held prisoner on Saturn and save the population of planet Earth from extinction. Simon, Raymond's best friend, is in trouble, too. The Men in Grey are after him and a cult of Satanic chicken worshippers are keen to use him as a human sacrifice. Simon does have a book from the future that might help him out, and there are all those villagers with the flaming torches. The Greatest Show off Earth is partly set in Bramfield, based upon the actual Sussex village of Henfield, where author Robert Rankin lived for a number of years. Rankin inhabited Raymond's cottage, which can easily be found by following the directions in the first chapter. The characters are mostly real people the author met and drank with in The Jolly Gardeners, and some, like Simon, Andy, Paul, and Military Dave appear in the book under their own names. With touching naivety, Rankin thought that the locals would appreciate being in his novel. Not all did, and a certain someone, who will remain nameless, shot the windscreen out of Rankin's car one night, and regularly left dead rats upon the doorstep to signal his disapproval. Country life never really agreed with Robert Rankin and he now lives happily in Brighton, where he no longer puts his neighbours in his books.

Step right up and feast your eyes on opposites like you’ve never seen them before!This fabulously clever novelty book is full of surprises. Ingenious paper engineering and gorgeous artwork combine to make an enormously fun opposites book for all readers. Tom Frost’s razzle-dazzle illustrations make this pop-up, fold-down, pull-out book something to be treasured.

The rascals from the world’s friendliest family circus are back in the second installment of this “smafunderful”* fully illustrated series.Everyone knows Sir Sidney’s Circus is the best in the world. But who’s the star of the show? The Circus Times is having a contest to find out. Just thinking about it gives Sir Sidney a worrywart, and it’s quickly clear why. Soon after he goes off to rest, the performers start thinking too much about winning the trophy and not enough about putting on a good show. Meanwhile, it looks as if ringmaster-in-training Barnabas Brambles might need some help managing the crew, so Bert and Gert, the sly brother-and-sister mice who travel with the show, set out to write a book to teach him how it’s done.Does Bert and Gert’s plan work? And who is the star of the circus? All will be revealed in The Greatest Star on Earth.*Kirkus Reviews

When 19th-century showman J. Quigley Dumbleton decides to open a zoo in New York City, he declares that it will be the greatest zoo on Earth, filled with the biggest and best specimens the world can offer. And true to his word, he brings to his admirers the largest animals he can find. But predictably the animals do not fare well in their cages and begin to waste away. Panicked by his shrinking attractions, Dumbleton seeks advice from everyone -- including a young sweeper named Jeremy Pennywhistle.The boy suggests the animals need exercise and starts to take them out for walks through Manhattan where they totally disrupt Sunday traffic on Park Avenue, get tangled in Broadway's overhead wires, and create navigational havoc on the East River.The New Yorkers, of course, prefer to visit the animals in the zoo rather than have them visit the city, and so the mayor bans further strolls outside the park. But once again, Jeremy Pennywhistle solves the problem. He has Dumbleton return all the animals to their natural homes where people can pay to go and visit them. The Eco-tourism industry is born.This fun-packed story with its quirky characters and amusing illustrations delivers a powerful environmental message along with its laughs.

When 19th-century showman J. Quigley Dumbleton decides to open a zoo in New York City, he declares that it will be the "greatest zoo on Earth", filled with the biggest and best specimens the world can offer. And true to his word, he brings to his admirers the largest animals he can find. But predictably the animals do not fare well in their cages and begin to waste away. Panicked by his shrinking attractions, Dumbleton seeks advice from everyone -- including a young sweeper named Jeremy Pennywhistle.The boy suggests the animals need exercise and starts to take them out for walks through Manhattan where they totally disrupt Sunday traffic on Park Avenue, get tangled in Broadway's overhead wires, and create navigational havoc on the East River.The New Yorkers, of course, prefer to visit the animals in the zoo rather than have them visit the city, and so the mayor bans further strolls outside the park. But once again, Jeremy Pennywhistle solves the problem. He has Dumbleton return all the animals to their natural homes where people can pay to go and visit them. The Eco-tourism industry is born.This fun-packed story with its quirky characters and amusing illustrations delivers a powerful environmental message along with its laughs.

A stream of consciousness narrative, M. Christopher, intertwines his personal story, a teenager growing up in the 1990's, describing the difficulties in being raised by a single mother with deep insecurities for the future.Large swaths of America are becoming a failing state, resembling a third world country. Conservatives and liberals alike must come to agreement that there are two major issues; that the richest people in America, the investment and financial class, including the upper 10%, are crushing 10s of millions of Americans’ ability to make an honest living and creating inequalities so vast that the middle class is on the verge of extinction. They are simply transferring wealth from the masses into their own hands rather than creating new wealth. And two; a growing cancer of immorality of a majority of American society is a selfish, opportunistic, winner-take-all, free-for-all for money and resources. Is this just the behavior of inherent and natural human nature and Capitalism? Or the economic result of an Earth with dwindling finite resources in an age of ever growing Greed?There is a class extermination going on in America and it comes down to political bargaining power. The events going on in the world today from the micro societal level, all the way up to the macro global level are creating a future that is not only unsustainable but is questionable whether civilization will survive the next several decades. The current trajectory we are on looks bleak; with most people being dead broke, indentured debt servants. The debate should be on the table with all potential solutions laid out – or do we risk going blindly into the future, entertaining and breeding ourselves to a slow extinction as we unravel the ‘progress’ of three thousand years of human civilization? The power of economic herd behavior and self-fulfilling prophecies could potentially snowball society into a total collapse or perhaps with our standard of living greatly reduced, a vast majority of society will live in huge crowded metropolis’ with nothing but a small apartment and our Smartphones for entertainment. It is both fascinating and exciting to live in these times – never before has the potential for failure been so great and the repercussion even greater. The enclaves for the Elite are set up around the world, from China’s giant prefabricated and over-invested Ghost Cities to Dubai – further separating the thriving class from the societal decay they helped create through the control of finance and labor through the highly technologically advanced stock market – the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever experienced continues to take place. We have the choice as to whether the future will be worth living in – do we care enough to work together to make that future better or will we continue on the selfish path that will destroy us all? From megacities of the future, to religion, capitalism, and the environment; as someone who has personally experienced extreme injustice, I discuss the stress humanity is facing as we approach and breach the limits to growth on planet Earth from a critical view of both sides of the political spectrum. Nobody is immune from critical analysis in this book, including myself. Critical analysis, admitting our flaws and failures, is the only way we can fix them. This is a matter of human justice and of our species’ survival. We are being crushed by a rigged system of ever complex laws, taxes and anti-competitive monopolies. The only word the ultra-wealthy understand is ‘more’ and they won’t stop until they have it all, at which point they will go after each others’ throats. The only end result of our current system is going from the Plutocracy (rule by the rich) that we are in, to a corporate dictatorship run by an aristocracy (rule by one large extended family). The more power concentrates into the hands of a few, the more corrupt America, China, and other powerful countries become.

ROLL UP! ROLL UP! YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT IN YOUR LIFE.The last thing Raymond expected when he went down to his allotment was to be abducted by a flying starfish from Uranus. But these things happen and when he learns that he is being sold as a delicacy in a Venusian auction, he is grateful to be rescued by the travelling circus.But this is not your everyday circus, this is Professor Merlin’s Greatest Show off Earth, with ancient exotic performers who travel between the inhabited worlds in a Victorian steamship. The professor has a job for Raymond: release the two hundred people held prisoner on Saturn and save the population of planet Earth from extinction.Simon, Raymond’s best friend, is in trouble too. The Men in Grey are after him and a cult of Satanic chicken worshippers are keen to use him as a human sacrifice. Simon does have a book from the future that might help him out, and there are all those villagers with the flaming torches.The Greatest Show off Earth is partly set in Bramfield, based upon the actual Sussex village of Henfield, where author Robert Rankin lived for a number of years. Rankin inhabited Raymond’s cottage, which can easily be found by following the directions in the first chapter. The characters are mostly real people the author met and drank with in The Jolly Gardeners, and some, like Simon, Andy, Paul and Military Dave appear in the book under their own names. With touching naivety, Rankin thought that the locals would appreciate being in his novel. Not all did, and a certain someone, who will remain nameless, shot the windscreen out of Rankin’s car one night, and regularly left dead rats upon the doorstep to signal his disapproval.Country life never really agreed with Robert Rankin and he now lives happily in Brighton, where he no longer puts his neighbours in his books.

Come hear the intriguing real-life tale of a man whose amazing adventure stories sounded too good to be true . . . or were they?There is not a whisper when Louis de Rougemont steps onto the stage to recount his astonishing experiences on the sea and in lands far away. It is a breathtaking tale of catastrophe and miraculous events. A monster with enormous tentacles! A sea turtle big enough to ride! Fish raining from the sky! Cannibals! But critics say he is an imposter with a gift for spinning yarns. Are Louis’s tales true? Or is he the greatest liar on Earth? Bold, whimsical artwork brings to life the tale of an early-twentieth-century man who held audiences rapt while his critics dubbed him a hoaxer of the highest degree. A fun slice of history sure to inspire a lively discussion of truth, fabrication, and the gray areas in-between.Back matter includes further information.