No Housebreaking Required! My Pet Book by Bob Staake

Choosing the right pet is hard, especially when drooly pups are not your cup of tea, and kittens bring only sneezes and wheezes. But this boy refuses to settle for less than the best.

Finally, in the local Bookopolis, he spots the pet of his dreams--a flea-free, low maintenance pal for sure--"a frisky, red hardcover" book! PERFECT!

IT NEVER NEEDED BATHING.
AND ITS EARS WOULD NEVER DROOP!
BUT BEST OF ALL THAT LITTLE PET...
IT DIDN'T EVEN POOP!

Sans pooper scooper, the boy is free to walk his pet anywhere, worry free. Shedding-free, his pet is welcome anywhere and is always open to sharing time, and in his book the boy finds "tales of glory" that he never imagined.

Everything is dandy, until the day the boy's pet goes missing. He searches the house frantically, but his red book is nowhere to be found. At last the family maid confesses that she might have accidentally put it in the give-away bag. The boy and his dad dash to the thrift shop, where the little red book is finally found hiding, (where else?) in a cast-off doghouse. His pet is back, just in time for bedtime, with a story and a snuggle.

Bob Staake's wacky newest, My Pet Book (Random House, 2014), features a pet owner and pet who definitely march to a different drummer. Kids will giggle at Staake's trademark quirky characters, especially a boy who can smugly walk a levitating book on a leash for fun. Even the rhymes are off-beat, allowing Kirkus Reviews to quip waggishly that Staake's verses are "doggerel," adding, "One of Staake's sillier, more ebullient outings—and that's saying something." A tongue-in-cheek look at pet-owning, with the plus of a plug for books and reading, gives this one a special place among the many dog and cat stories out there. Read this one with Paul Schmid's Oliver and his Alligator for a couple of tales of imaginative animal accomplices.