Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
I Wish I Had a Pet
Picture Book
For ages 6 and up
Simon and Schuster, 2014 ISBN: 978-1442453326
Many people, children and adults alike, sometimes wish that they had a pet. They see someone walking along the street with a sweet dog at their heels, and think how nice it would be to have a dog to walk. Perhaps they see someone sitting on their front porch with a happily purring cat in their lap. How soothing it would be to have a cat like that, a furry purry presence who makes you feel special.
In this book a charming little mouse person asks you if you “wish sometimes…that you had a pet?” She then goes on to talk about how important it is that you think about what it means to have a pet. For one thing you have to choose the right one, a pet that won’t be too big to handle, or one that won’t make you have an allergic reaction.
Once you have found the right pet, the pet that suits your lifestyle and personality, you have to make sure that you take care of it properly. A pet, even a fish or a roly-poly, takes a lot of work. You need to keep it clean, fed, exercised, and happy. You also have to clean up after your pet’s messes (no matter how nasty they are), and be willing to accept that sometimes pets are “very naughty,” especially if they are bored.
In this delightfully sweet and often funny picture book, Maggie Rudy shows people the joys and woes of pet ownership using her cunning little felt mice characters. On every spread we see a mouse character or two with bees, fish, beetles, lizards, frogs, and other mouse-sized pets. Backdrops that are mouse perfect present readers with so much to look at, and one almost wishes one could hop into the page and visit the characters in their world.
