The Santa Barbara Zoo’s 8-foot-tall grizzly bear, Tiny, along with his friends Condor and Turtle, were guest readers recently at Roosevelt Elementary School in Santa Barbara as part of Read Across America.

Read Across America is an annual event that’s also known as Dr. Seuss Day. A number of local celebrities participated, including poet laureate Sojourner Kincaid, Santa Barbara City Council member Jason Dominguez, and county Supervisors Janet Wolf and Das Williams.

Tiny is a story-telling bear who lives at the Santa Barbara Zoo. To celebrate Read Across America, Tiny, Condor and Turtle read the book How Lucky Got His Shoe, written and illustrated by Karen Winnick.

The enthusiastic young audiences dressed in jammies and brought stuffed animals just for the event.

How Lucky Got His Shoe is the true story of how the Santa Barbara Zoo’s own Humboldt penguin had a custom shoe made for him by local shoe company, Teva.

The Santa Barbara Zoo puppets also gave out copies of the Winnick’s book to every kindergartner and first-grader they read to.

Winnick is a Los Angeles-based author/illustrator who also created the book, Gemina: The Crooked Neck Giraffe, about another local animal celebrity.

— Julia McHugh for Santa Barbara Zoo.