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How To Put Me In The Zoo

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When you first pick up Put Me in the Zoo you may think of it as your average children’s book about a leopard teaching colors; but, when you take a closer look you would see it’s a story about someone finally accepting and coming out as gay. When the book starts, we see a leopard walking in to the zoo. Wanting to be accepted by everyone there (3). The zoo represents the world the straight people live and where the normal people belong. The leopard knows that’s society’s view as normal. The leopard doesn’t want to accept the fact that he’s a minority. We then follow the leopard into the zoo where he realizes this is where animals like him live (5). Those animals are treated normally and aren’t going to be looked down upon or made fun of. …show more content…

They’re telling the leopard that they don’t want him there nor do they they need him. Watching all of this happen is a little girl and boy leaving the zoo (9). It seems as if the zoo security guards know that the leopard is gay because of his colors spots and assumes that’s a sign the leopard’s a homosexual. Once the security guards leave, the leopard begins talking to the two children. Asking them why the zoo won’t accept him for the way he is (11). The leopard is saying this as if to cover up who he really is. Like he’s humiliated by the person he really is. The two children begin questioning the leopard of why he should belong in the zoo (13). This part of the story sets up for the leopard to finally come out. He will answer the two children's honestly because they’re just kids. They won’t judge him as his peers would. On pages to come, the leopard tells the children that he belongs in the zoo because he can change his spots every color of the rainbow (14-23). Each color he changes his spots too is a color on the gay pride flag. Red, orange, green, blue and, purple. As the leopard is showing the children the colors he realizes the kids picked up the truth about him. He becomes panicked and needs to think of a strategy to change what they’re thinking. He doesn’t want anyone to know his true

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