Zoobooks, also formatted as ZooBooks, is a monthly subscribed children's magazine founded in 1980. Every issue focuses a different animal and/or different species of said animal. The series uses diagrams, facts, games, and pictures to relay accurate information about the animals it covers.
In 2018, the National Wildlife Federation acquired Zoobooks and rebranded it as Ranger Rick Zoobooks. However, Ranger Rick still continues to be published alongside Zoobooks. Around this time period, spinoff series to Zoobooks were made for different age levels; Zootles for preschoolers and Zoobies for toddlers. A third spinoff, Zoodinos, focuses on dinosaurs (and other prehistoric creatures). It was quickly renamed to Ranger Rick Dinosaurs.
The main website can be found here
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Tropes:
- The '80s: As mentioned above, the magazine has been around since 1980.
- Bambification: One of the cover variants for the "Sharing the World With Animals" issue depicts a little boy holding a flower up to a fawn. The message of the issue is that humans have to take better care of the environment, as we've already lost so many species; with this in mind, the fawn in the cover is a textbook example of this trope, the baby deer representing innocence that rests in the human's hands.
- Fur and Loathing: Whenever the fur industry is mentioned, it is in a negative light. "Sharing the World with Animals", for example, has a man and a woman in seal and leopard fur coats, respectively. The captions explain the methods used to kill animals, such as the use of steel traps, which the magazine compares the force of to "a car door slamming on your hand". Justified when the trope comes up in issues for endangered animals, like in the "Tigers" issue, as poaching for fur has been cited as the reason for some animals becoming rarer.
- Green Aesop: Naturally, for a magazine devoted to animals and the environment. Most issues dedicated to one animal ended with a few paragraph describing threats that the animals face, and what we can do to improve their future. Sometimes, entire issues were devoted to Green Aesops, namely the "Endangered Animals" and "Sharing the World with Animals" issues, which went into detail about topics like overharvesting, deforestation, pollution, and recently extinct animals.
- One of this issue's illustrations managed to subvert this trope and play it straight at the same time. An adorable baby panda was under attack by a group of wild dogs, but its Mama Bear had stepped in to protect it. She is coming down, fangs bared, right on top of one of the would-be predators. The caption
indicates that a panda's jaws are capable of crushing bone as easily as bamboo.
- One of this issue's illustrations managed to subvert this trope and play it straight at the same time. An adorable baby panda was under attack by a group of wild dogs, but its Mama Bear had stepped in to protect it. She is coming down, fangs bared, right on top of one of the would-be predators. The caption
- Repeating Ad: The infomercial for Zoobooks, which can be found here, was a Long Runner from The '80s through the Turn of the Millennium. It was commonplace enough to be frequently parodied many years later.
- Rhino Rampage: The "Rhinos" issue theorizes that this trope may be the result of a rhino's poor eyesight: when you can't tell if something is a threat, it's better to charge at it just to be safe. Accompanying this text is an illustration of a black rhino charging a speeding jeep. Another page has this illustration of a mother rhino attacking a tiger that wanted her baby.
