Brief text (just a sentence or two on most pages) couples with close-up photographs of dining animals to enumerate what different zoo animals eat and how some of the foods are delivered to them. Repetition makes the text accessible to early beginning readers and highlights similarities in some animals' diets. Photographs primarily support the text but sometimes provide additional details.

Readers are invited to experience meal time for the zoo's animals in this Step-into-Reading series offering. The story touches on food preparation but concentrates on the dietary preferences of each animal. Elephants love watermelon, panda bears desire bamboo leaves, and pink flamingos eat pink shrimp. The animal kingdom is well represented with pigs, a zebra, a giraffe, birds, a tortoise, a porcupine, a polar bear, a sea lion, a tiger, and an alligator. The storyline is simple but will interest young readers, and while the vocabulary has challenges, the large color photographs will help kids along. The work is based on Shahan's photoessayFeeding Time at the Zoo, published in 2000.