Sparky!
Jenny Offill and Chris Appelhans
Orion Children’s Books
What the endearing girl narrator of this wonderfully quirky book wants more than anything in the world is a pet. Her mother finally consents but her stipulation “as long as it doesn’t need to be walked or bathed or fed.” presents quite a challenge for our determined narrator. She turns to the school librarian for assistance and is given the S volume of the Animal Encyclopedia

wherein she discovers the perfect minimal maintenance thing – a SLOTH.
The girl duly mail-orders one and when it arrives she names him Sparky, taking him straight outside to his very own tree. Observations of the pet begin but for two days he just sleeps; time for some games thinks the little girl but statues is the only one that works for the pet and her friend Mary Potts is far from impressed. A ‘Sloth Extravaganza’ is advertised,

and a training regime is implemented but sleepy Sparky just doesn’t respond to commands to learn tricks and there’s no way he’ll wow his audience at the performance. Playing Dead isn’t exactly a showstopper after all.
Despite everything though, Sparky and the little girl remain close: she accepts his slothfulness and loves him for it.
‘ “You’re it, Sparky,” I said. And for a long, long time he was.’

Beautifully told with an understated humour that is perfectly mirrored in Chris Appelhans’ watercolour illustrations. Executed in shades of brown and teal with the occasional splash of red, pink, green or yellow, every one is a delight.
This is one of those slow burning treasures that one returns to over and over with increasing pleasure at each reading. That sloth is SO adorable. Perfect for sharing or individual readers.

 

The Pet Person
Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
Andersen Press pbk
Almost twenty years after its first publication, we have the opportunity once more to join Rex the dog in this hilarious tale wherein the human/pet relationship is turned on its head.
Dog, Rex really wants a pet person for his birthday but his parents are against such a furniture spoiling, greedy, smelly addition to the household and his other canine relations are equally unenthusiastic. What’s a poor human-loving canine to do?
Off he goes to sulk in the park and there Rex discovers Ginger: the perfect answer to his pet-longing perhaps?

Or perhaps not …

At the end of the day, a disillusioned, rather wiser Rex returns home to discover his birthday present waiting for him and it’s certainly not “a tennis ball.”

Brilliant: Great dialogue (the interplay between words and pictures is spot on), superb characterization

and wonderfully imagined scenarios to tickle the fancy of children and adults alike.

I’d forgotten just how good this book is.

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