The Star Zoo

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A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Harry Gilbert.

In our world today a hummingbird is a small, brilliantly coloured bird that lives in the tall trees of tropical forests.

In the far distant future, Hummingbird (Hummy for short) is a girl of sixteen who lives somewhere in the Galaxy, on a planet called Just Like Home. She has the name ‘Hummingbird’ in big letters on all her clothes, but she has never seen a real hummingbird. She has never seen any living animal or bird at all. The Book of Remembering says that there were once many animals on a planet called Earth, but that was before the Burning, a long, long time ago…

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Harry Gilbert

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THE STAR ZOO

Humans are the most successful animals on the planet Earth – successful, that is, in the fight with other animals. If it’s a question of fighting for food or land, then we humans always win. We cut down trees, build houses and factories, grow our own food. The animals must go and find another place to live … if they can.

We humans always win because we are intelligent. We can think, talk, use tools, make wonderful machines. We are extremely clever animals …

Perhaps too clever. Perhaps people in the future will think differently. Hummingbird (Hummy for short) is a girl of sixteen who lives in about 22,500 AD, on a planet a long way from Earth. She likes clothes and dancing, and worries about who she will marry. She has never seen a tree. She has never seen any animal or bird. She knows what animals are, of course, because there are stories about them in the Book of Remembering. But who can believe old stories like that?

For Will

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First published in Oxford Bookworms 1992

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ISBN 978 0 19 4791311

Illustrated by: Craig Phillips/Shannon Associates

Word count (main text): 8915 words

For more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookworms

e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478661 4

e-Book first published 2012

You must marry me

Nothing ever happens on Just Like Home – that’s the name of the planet I live on. I get so bored!

But tonight was Remembering Night and that’s exciting. There’s the big fire where everybody must put on something that they love and watch it burn. Then there’s the dancing round the fire.

But what I like best about Remembering Night are the clothes. We usually wear what we like on Just Like Home – but the clothes must have the name of our name-animal on them. For example, I always have the word ‘Hummingbird’ on my clothes, which means my name is Hummingbird – Hummy for short.

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