Central Kansas Library System

The gorilla in the story is an unobservant zookeeper is followed home by all the animals he thinks he has left behind in the zoo.

If Gerald McGrew ran the zoo, he'd let all the animals go and fill it with more unusual beasts--a ten-footed lion, an Elephant-Cat, a Mulligatawny, a Tufted Mazurka, and others.

The animals at the Franklin Park Zoo love their kindhearted caretaker, Griffin Keyes. Finding himself more comfortable with a lion than a lady, Griffin decides the only way to get a girl in his life is to leave the zoo and find a more glamorous job. The animals, in a panic, decide to break their time-honored code of silence and reveal their biggest secret: they can talk! To keep Griffin from leaving, they decide to teach him the rules of courtship,...

The zoo animals go on strike until the tears of a disappointed little girl make them realize that they actually like what they do.

A little girl has the sniffles and a runny nose but no tissue and nonetheless visits and pets all the animals at the zoo, giving them something that they would rather not have.