The Boxcar Children

#26 The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Zoo by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1992.

The Aldens are visiting an old friend of their grandfather’s, who owns a zoo. The friend, Edward, lives alone and isn’t very organized, so the Aldens offer to help him straighten up the house and do some cooking. Edward is pleased with their help and few home-cooked meals. However, strange things start happening at the zoo.

First, someone switches around all the signs identifying the animals, so each sign is next to the wrong animal. It looks like a silly prank, but then more things happen. Then, someone sabotages the electricity, making it difficult to keep and prepare the food for the animals. It gets worse when someone sabotages the temperature controls in the animals’ habitats, making it too hot for some animals and too cold for others. The Aldens help the zoo staff to fix the temperatures because the animals could actually be killed by being kept at the wrong temperature! Finally, someone steals the zoo’s monkey! Who could be behind these things?

The man who owns the local bookstore helps the Aldens find books about animals, but he seems oddly reluctant to talk about the zoo. A local woman, Helen Brooks, thinks that the zoo should be shut down because supporting it costs too much money for taxpayers. She doesn’t care what happens to the animals, and although many local people love the zoo, she plans to bring up the issue at the next town council meeting. When someone tries to sell the monkey to the local pet store, the Aldens start to get the answers they’re looking for.

My Reaction

I thought the mystery was all right, but I had some mixed feelings about the way the villain was handled. We see the villain and get to know the villain’s other role in the story before we know it’s the villains, but I just thought there could have been more build-up about the villain’s connection to the zoo before the person is revealed as the culprit. The attempted sale of the money kind of clinches the identity of the culprit without the Aldens really having to figure out why first.

I did think the book was interesting for the way they explain both how some of the pranks at the zoo are actually seriously dangerous to the animals’ health, like changing the temperatures in their enclosures. It also explains how the Aldens help the zoo employees to help take care of the animals, so the book has some educational quality.