My Pet Book

 

We had a pretty relaxing visit at the library this week. Lots of kids and lots of books. Lots of hands rubbing and petting. Lots of little soft voices. Even Electra, the Dogzilla, was lulled into dream land. We heard about Lego adventures and Dora adventures and Fancy Nancy and poison ivy!! Yikes! We read about Kipper and a butterfly. That Kipper is pretty cute, I must say. We saw that crazy Pigeon get upset about a chocolate chip cookie! For Heaven’s sake!!

But the book that caught my ear and had me sit up and take notice was one about a pet book. Yes, a pet book!

My Pet Book
by Bob Staake
published by Random House in 2014
a brand new book!!

It begins ……
Most pets, you know, are cats and dogs.
Go out and take a look.
But there’s a boy in Smartytown
Whose pet is ….. a little book.

Just imagine that! A book as a pet!! How clever is that! Clever of the boy to think of it! And clever of Mr Staake to write about it!! It is a very clever story. It’s full of rhyme and rhythm and shapes and color! I don’t notice the color part so much, but the kids sure did! “Look! All the people are different colors! And they’re squares and circles!”  Much laughter throughout this book.

The boy in the book didn’t want a pet that needed to be fed and walked or one that shed hair and fleas. He wanted an easy care pet so his parents took him shopping at a book store. Oh! There were sooooo many to choose from! He decided on a bright red hardcover, put a leash on it and walked it home. Throughout the book that we were reading you see the boy enjoying HIS book – surrounded by all sorts of folks with their pets doing all the things that his pet didn’t do. My reading kids liked studying these illustrations and making note of all the activity.

Now one of the reasons that the boy thought that a book would be a good pet was because it wouldn’t ever run away. But lo and behold! The Red Book got lost!! What a calamity! Oh, man! All the emotion! Mr Staake is an absolute genius! Who could imagine that a square and a rectangle could produce such emotion! Quite an adventure ensues as the boy and his maid search for the dear lost book. But all comes well in the end.

This is a fabulous little book. Well, it’s actually kind of a big picture book. But fabulous either way. The kids LOVED it! And it brought about a great discussion about pets. Those kids all had quite an assortment of pets, but no one ever thought about a pet book! We have LOTS of books at my house, and I have some very favorites, but I never thought of any of them as a pet. I will now be looking at all those books a little differently, I think.

Jackie at My Little Bookcase, has a great post about playing with books! Check out her list of 10 fun ways to play with books and help kids connect with reading. Awesome!!

Now watch as Mr Staake creates a character on his computer!!

Enjoy your pets, be they dog or book!
And come back again for another look
At a dog with a book in a reading nook!
Your library friend
Rhythm