A few years ago Jeff was looking for a movie we could watch for Mother’s Day. He picked Zookeeper’s Wife, and we got about halfway through it before The Artist got overwhelmed with the darkness of the story and wasn’t emotionally ready to see the light and hope buried under all that darkness. I don’t really blame her, but fast forward a few years and Batman chose this for his book and a movie during his semester of solo work as his siblings were both taking college classes. This made the Zookeeper’s Wife book club a little more unique than the other movies.
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Zookeeper’s Wife discussion questions
I talked through this with Batman after he’d read it. It brings up all sorts of interesting questions.
- What compromises are you okay with?
- What compromise is too far?
- Where do you see hope in this darkness?
But other people had more official questions:
- Zookeeper’s Wife discussion questions
- Zookeeper’s Wife book club– this has some interesting background information
- Zookeeper’s Wife movie discussion– Learn in Color specifically made this for the movie, so keep that in mind
Quick side note on grade level for Zookeeper’s Wife
I put this down for 9th grade on my book and a movie bookmarks (buy them or get the coupon when you join the newsletter and access to my subscriber library!). I think most 9th graders will handle it just fine, but I also have the giant caveat that there is at least one strongly implied rape (it’s not shown, but the inference is clearly there for sure in the movie).
Make your own evaluation for your family.
Now back to our regularly scheduled post.
Zookeeper’s Wife snacks
Because of the content of the movie I really didn’t want to go super silly with the snacks. Instead I concentrated on foods from Poland and the time period. Other than frosted animal crackers for the zoo animals the story takes its name from.
I love those silly things and I wanted an excuse to eat them.
But to find information I took to searching and found this article from Schmoop. I however did not save the recipes I used to make all of these foods. I’ll have to see if I can find those in a bit. The post may go up without recipe links
Most of these were specifically mentioned in the book in some way shape or form.
- pierogi- our version is not at all authentic. I went with the super easy crescent rolls cut into pieces with mini-hot dogs, because I like that food and I know making homemade pierogi would be more work than I was up for
Also, because I was thinking of the Veggietales 8 Polish Foods
Back to the food list.
- stale bread- I made rolls, but as the war went on getting food became harder and harder
- piernik- a honey spice cake the book mentioned eating before the war really took hold
- bullets- whoppers, now I want some whoppers
- zoo animals-frosted animal crackers, clearly writing this right before dinner is not a good idea because I want to eat everything
- piernicki- honey spice cookies, I went through so much honey in preparation for this movie, also these cookies were a nightmare to make
- real jam- this was a big deal in the book later on when they were able to get some. I picked up a higher quality jam than I usually get, and it was delicious
- vodka with honey
- iced coffee- both of these were basically a large quantity of random sodas that looked fun to try
And that’s our Zookeeper’s Wife snacks, all in all quite delicious.
Which brings our Zookeeper’s Wife book club to an end.
Some more World War 2 content
Over 10 years of content there are quite a few ideas on here.
I have never heard of the movie and the book before but it sounds intriguing. Perhaps I can see it with my husband – it doesn’t look like A’s cup of tea either…