Zabu; The adventures of a young Orca

In her children’s book series “Zabu”, Doris Thomas tells of the various adventures and encounters experienced by a young orca in the wild, depicting the beauty of our oceans and the challenges faced by marine life for young readers.

One of the most popular books in Lobosonda’s library are by far all books belonging to the Zabu series by Doris Thomas. The tale begins with an unfortunate event; Zabu, the young orca, is separated from his family by a huge drift net. Orcas are highly intelligent, social predators and live in tightly knit family pods where all females share the responsibility of raising the young. Despite the fact that Orcas undoubtedly dominate oceanic food webs as their top predators, today’s oceans are quite a dangerous place for a lone juvenile orca. In an attempt to find his way back to his family, Zabu survives exciting adventures and experiences incredible encounters, meeting various types of whales unfamiliar to him so far. He befriends Piet, the sperm whale, saves the life of a humpback whale baby, competes with a dolphin in a swimming contest and eventually receives advice from a few cheeky belugas for him to complete his journey.

The tale is the first of five lovingly illustrated reading adventures about Zabu and his adventures in the big blue. Despite being a fiction series for children, the books all contain a lot of information about the most impressive creatures of our seas.

Born in Germany in 1966, Doris Thomas has observed a wide variety of whale species herself on trips to the USA, Canada, Italy and many times to the Azores, and has swum with free-living dolphins in the ocean. She believes that you protect what you love and hopes that she can animate her readers, both children and adults, to love and protect cetaceans like Zabu.

Further titles in the Zabu book series include Zabu 2 – An Orca in Search of the Unknown Adventure, Zabu 3 – The Secret of the Orcas Adventure, Zabu 4 – Orcas in Danger, Zabu 5 – Orcas on the Run. The entire Zabu series is available in our shop in Calheta. 

By Paula Thake