Children Make Terrible Pets Book

My favorite line was "Woof!" I giggled at that. The whole story and its pictures are adorable.

This is a very cute story that children will identify with, especially those who long for unconventional pets or who care about wildlife. Lucy the bear finds a child she calls Squeaker and brings him home and begs to keep him. By the end of this experiment Lucy realizes that her pet belongs with his own kind and she also learns a bunch of reasons why children make terrible pets. And, then there is a very amusing ending.

The art is so different from what I expected from Peter Brown and this is no The Curious Garden, but luckily I wasn't comparing the two books as I was reading this.

The art is very interesting. The illustrations are "rendered in pencil on paper, with cut construction paper and wood and a wee bit of digital tweaking." The many word balloons are "handlettered by the author." (He has excellent printing skills, by the way.)

This is a fun read aloud book and can be enjoyed by the youngest child. For older preschoolers and young schoolchildren, I think it could lead to some interesting discussions.

The very short author bio gives a vignette that could explain why the author-illustrator created this particular book.

I vacillated between giving this book 4 or 5 stars; it's a 4 ½ star book for me. It's funny, adorable, and brings up some great points in a fun way. But, while I loved the facial expressions and many of the details in the illustrations, I couldn't quite love the style of some of them. But, I'll go with 5 stars for the clever premise and the many hilarious bits.