Belly Up is a 306-page fiction mystery novel for kids by Stuart Gibbs. Belly Up takes place in a fictional zoo/amusement park in Texas called Funjungle, where the park's mascot, Henry Hippo has been found dead. While Funjungle claims it is a natural death, the main character believes it was murder. I recently read this book and thought it was great. Stuart Gibbs seem to know a lot about zoos, and makes referenced to great zoos around North America (Bronx and San Diego are mentioned often). Gibbs also mentions things that we as ZooChatters notice to often, like people feeding the animals, teasing the animals, only going to zoos to see ABC species, or skipping the entire reptile house because the animatronic dinosaurs are inside it. The mystery was great too. Overall, it was a great book, and very worth reading! There are two sequels called Poached and Big Game, but I haven't managed to read them yet.
For anyone who cares, this a list of species at FunJungle as mentioned in Belly Up: Hippo River Nile Crocodile birds (species unspecified) Common Hippopotomas Monkey Mountain Chimpanzee gorilla (species unspecified) colobus monkey (species unspecified) baboon (species unspecified) squirrel monkey (species unspecified) orangutan (species unspecified) Carnivore Canyon Lion Tiger Jaguar raccoon (species unspecified) otter (species unspecified) Leopard Grizzly Bear Mountain Lion World of Reptiles Black Mamba cobra (species unspecified) Cottonmouth rattlesnake (unspecified, book says "several species") Fer-De-Lance more venomous snakes (species unspecified) lizard (species unspecified) Asian Small-Clawed Otter birds (species unspecified) Scarlet Ibis Safariland Wildebeest Water Buffalo rhino (species unspecified) Common Eland Impala warthog (species unspecified) Nocturnal Life bats (species unspecified) Deserts of the World camel (species unspecified) Wilds of America Moose Shark Oddesey shark (species unspecified) Polar Zone penguins (species unspecified) Polar Bear Zelda Zebra's Petting Zoo zebra (species unspecified) Carribean dolphins (species unspecified) coral reef tank Amazon Adventure anaconda (species unspecified) Capybara sloth (species unspecified) The Land Down Under kangaroo (species unspecified) Pacyderm Forest elephant (species unspecified) Other sea lion (show animals, species unspecified) I will edit it when I read some more books.
I’ve read all the books in this series, have to say they’re pretty awesome. I even created a fan-made list of species known to be and which I speculated to be in FJ’s collection.
Not sure if you're allowed to reply to years-old posts, but I believe Stuart Gibbs worked at the Philadelphia Zoo for a bit and got inspired to write the FunJungle series because of it. I agree; the series is quite fun to read!
