Sparky! (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2014; vuoden 2014 painos)

I love Sparky the sloth and I love our protagonist for loving Sparky. Even though he's not a traditional pet, and he can't really do any tricks and he isn't good at any games (except Statue, he's really really good at that) and Mary Potts thinks he's not a real pet, our girl loves him. The illustrations are beautiful watercolours and the whole thing has a really melancholy feel to it. ( )

I really loved the illustration style in this book. However, I did feel that sometimes the transitions in the story could be a bit better. ( )

This book is about a little girl that wants a pet. Her mother puts some rules on which kind of pet she can get. She ends up with Sparky the sloth. Sparky is different from other pets. The little girl loves Sparky very much. She plays with him like a normal pet. This story shows how not all pets are the same. The love is what matters.

Ages 2nd grade- 4th grade. It would be a fun introduction to Sloths at any age.

Critique of Genere- This is a fantasy story because it would be unrealistic to have a sloth as a pet.

Media- Gouache ( )

A young girl longs for a pet in this lovely picture-book, but her mother refuses to consider any animal that requires walking, bathing or regular feeding. So the girl gets a sloth, and names her new animal companion Sparky. Unsurprisingly, Sparky isn't a particular active pet, something the girl at first has trouble accepting, attempting to teach him tricks and to get him to perform for the neighbors. Eventually however, she must come to terms with her slothful sloth's essential nature, and accept him for what and who he is...

Illustrated by the immensely talented Chris Appelhans, whose work I recently discovered through the newly published A Greyhound, A Groundhog (written by Emily Jenkins), Sparky! is a visually appealing picture-book, with a muted but lovely color scheme that put me in mind of such artists as Jon Klassen and Carson Ellis, and a skillful depiction of its heroine's changing emotional state. It is also a well-written book, one which explores a child's experiences getting a new pet and adapting to that pet's needs. In fact, author Jenny Offill won a Charlotte Zolotow Award, given out annually by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Education for the best writing in the picture-book genre. All in all, this was charming book, one I would recommend to anyone looking for children's stories about getting an animal companion, and accepting that not all such companions will be prodigies and/or entertainment animals. ( )

A little girl desperately wants a pet but her mother says that she can only get a pet that they do not have to care for. The little racks and racks her brain for an idea and finally find the perfect pet- a sloth! Her mother has no option but to get a sloth, but the little becomes frustrated because Sparky (the sloth) won't do any tricks. She ends up loving the sloth and thinking that he is the best she could ever have.

This is the cutest children's book that I have read in a long time! I love that the little girl got a sloth as a pet and the pet acted just like a real sloth would- not doing much! I would highly recommend this book!

An activity that I would do with this book is a writing prompt on if you could have any pet in the world, what would it be?
I am sure that there would be some interesting answers! ( )