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.

Kitty Knows Best: Matilda's Cat by Emily Gravett

Little Matilda is clearly trying to bond with her pet. She's wearing her cat costume so that they can be twins. She's hauled out the requisite ball of yarn, and has a ball herself twisting and flinging it all about for her kitty to chase.

But Matilda's cat is no chubby, sweet-eyed kitty enthralled with chasing a length of wool.

Matilda's cat is a long and lanky marmalade Tom, sharp of snout and ears, and clearly having none of it.

Matilda crosses out her first supposition and moves on to try another idea. Perhaps her cat likes tea parties....

Matilda lays out a rather sumptuous spread for a pretend party--tomato and cuke sandwiches, cupcakes, and a pretty pot of tea. Her cat stares contemptuously at his plate with its single (unpeeled) banana.

Scratch that. Perhaps her tabby prefers some outdoor feats of skill and derring-do. All cats like to climb trees, right? Matilda goes right up the trunk to a nice limb, just right for a girl and her cat to share. The cat is clearly appalled, with ears laid back at the sight.

Wearing funky hats? Matilda looks stunning, but this cat is no cat in the hat. Feathered and fruited, his chapeau covers his entire furry head, and Cat freaks out.

Matilda crosses that one off her list. How about reading story books?

Matilda exchanges her cat costume for purple Yorkie-printed PJs and doggy slippers and hops into bed, patting a place beside her for her cat. But Cat is not pleased with her choice of books (it's Emily Gravett's Dogs, a nice inside joke) and the shadow on the wall is indeed rather wolfish! Cat is horrified! Matilda's pet-pleasing list is a total loser!

MATILDA'S CAT LIKES PLAYING WITH WOOL

TEA PARTIES

FUNKY HATS

CLIMBING TREES

BEDTIME STORIES

Is there no pleasing this finicky feline?

Author Gravett slyly suggests that her list is all things Matilda likes to do, in her latest, Matilda's Cat (Simon & Schuster, 2014). But there is one thing Cat truly likes to do, and in artist Gravett's final page we see him cuddling on top of Matilda's cat-printed blanket, ready to snuggle up for a long winter's sleep with her.

Gravett's pitch-perfect pictures are done in grainy crayon on rough-textured, off-white paper, extending her simple text with drawings which contrast Matilda' determination and her cat's disdain for her chosen activities for them in telling vignettes.  Emily Gravett's work has great charm, having deservedly earned her Kate Greenaway Medals (the British version of our Caldecott Awards).  As Kirkus Reviews writes in a starred review, "A master of animal countenance, Gravett pairs an expressive cat with a busy kid and winks at the difference between textual and visual message."

Chill! A Mammoth in the Fridge by Michael Escoffier

"DAD! DAD! THERE'S A MAMMOTH IN THE FRIDGE!"

"DON'T BE SILLY, NOAH. COME AND EAT YOUR FRIES."

Well, if there were a mammoth in your house, where else would he be?

Noah is excited; his little sister Elsa looks stricken, and Dad is clearly annoyed with the interruption. So Mom takes charge and calls the fire department and the firemen take this unusual sortie in their stride.

"WE'RE HERE FOR THE MAMMOTH, MA'AM!" they say, their capture nets at the ready.

The mammoth decides it's time to leave his cool hiding place and runs outside, down the street, and climbs into the top of a nearby tree. The fireman, the family, and an array of curious neighbors gather around underneath.

No one seems to have a plan for retrieving a mammoth from a tree. They wait... and wait... and wait. Finally, the crew chief decides that mammoth hunting is really not in their job description.

"HUH! WE COULD BE HERE ALL FALL.

SORRY GUYS. WE'VE GOT TO GO."

"COME ON. IT'S NOT OUR PROBLEM," Dad agrees.

The mammoth falls asleep in the treetop, and everyone goes about their daily routine.  But when night falls and all the lights are out,  little Elsa steals out the door.

"HERE, KITTY, KITTY!  COME ON!

LOOK AT THESE YUMMY CARROTS!"

Whose mammoth this is is not in doubt, in Michael Escoffier's A Mammoth in the Fridge (Gecko Press Titles) (Gecko Press, 2013), as Elsa shushes her pet and stealthily leads him upstairs to her room, hangs a sign on the doorknob (ELSA'S ROOM DO NOT ENTER), and with a last warning to her wayward mammoth, climbs into bed, surrounded by her secret menagerie, a unicorn, a dinosaur, and a sea monster, all curled up on her bedside rug. With retro cartoon illustrations by artist Matthieu Maudet, in wavy blackline and flat primary colors, this tale will remind former kids of the jolly fantasy of Syd Hoff's classic Danny and the Dinosaur stories. Add in the fun of putting  a big one over on the parents and this old-fashioned story has a lot of appeal to modern kids. Chill out with this one along with Eric Barclay's recent Hiding Phil, for a couple of far-fetched pet fantasies (see my review here).