Prolific Painter! Pete the Cat: A Pet for Pete by James Dean

Pete is going to the pet store... to get a pet.

At first Pete thinks he wants a bird. But when he sees a goldfish, he falls in love with her. It's Goldie for him! Back home Pete puts Goldie's goldfish bowl in his room. He feeds her some fish food.

NOW WHAT?

Pet knows he can't swim with Goldie at the beach. He can't exactly play with a pet in a bowl! But there's one thing Pete CAN do!

He paints a picture of Goldie!

When his mom admires his painting, Pet gives it to her as a present. But when his friend Bob sees Pete's painting he wants one. Bob is wowed! He shows the painting to Tom, and then Tom wants one. And when Pete takes his painting to school for show-and-tell, the whole class is wowed! PETE HAS A PROBLEM. Now everyone wants a painting of Goldie. Pete tries to comply. He uses up all his paints and has to buy more at the art store. Pete has another problem. He wants to please everyone in his class but he doesn't even have time to do his homework! What to do? But Mom comes through with an idea of how everyone in town can see a painting of Goldie, in James Dean's Pete the Cat: A Pet for Pete (My First I Can Read) (HarperCollins), in which Pete takes advantage of the roof rack for his surfboard on their VW Beetle to display a giant painting of Goldie to everyone in town! This My First Shared Reading book gives all Pete the Cat fans an opportunity to enjoy Pete's artwork while they are practicing their reading. For seasonal fun, share this one with James Dean's Pete the Cat: Trick or Pete.

Oh, YEZZZ! Fly Guy's Amazing Tricks by Tedd Arnold

THE AMAZING FLY GUY CIRCUS
TODAY!

Buzz's best buddy Fly Guy has learned some new tricks to amaze and delight his neighborhood friends.

"Get ready," said Buzz. "NOW... the BACKSTROKE!"/

Fly Guy swims the backstroke across the bird bath.

Then he demonstrates the "Dizzy Doozy," flying in a spiral around a girl's head. She's dizzy, but she's not delighted.

Luckily, just then Buzz's mom calls him to supper. He can't resist showing off Buzz's new tricks to his parents. Buzz does the backstroke in Mom's milk. He does the Dizzie Doozy around Dad's head. And for his finale, he does the Big Booger, hanging from Dad's nose.

Buzz's parents are not delighted either.

So after dinner Buzz takes Fly Guy outside.

"I have an idea," he tells Fly Guy. "Do your tricks only when I say NOW!"

Just then a big kid comes along, slurping a milkshake.

"Are you talking to a bug, Bug Brains?" he sneers.

"Answer me, NOW!" yelled the big kid!

"YEZZZ!" said Fly Guy.

Fly Guy goes into action. He backstrokes in the big kid's milkshake, does the Dizzy Doozy around his head, and the Big Booger on his nose. Grossed out, the big kid staggers backward, right into a garbage can, which turns over and releases reinforcements--a swarm of a zillion unhappy flies who chase the bully until he's out of sight.

It's another case of an unlikely friendzhip, as Fly Guy once more savezz the day, in Tedd Arnold's Fly Guy's Amazing Tricks (Fly Guy 14) (Cartwheel Books). Beginning readers love Arnold's googly-eyed characters and the easy-reading vocabulary in this best-selling zeries, great for practicing their reading skills over the summer (but don't tell them that's what they're doing). Just enjoy the gigglez as Fly Guy does his thing. Pair this one with Tedd Arnold's recent top-selling Fly Guy and the Alienzz (Fly Guy 18), NOW!

"Arnold's distinctive and expressive black-dotted, ball-eyed characters and occasional plays on words will keep young readers smiling and rooting for this duo," sayzzz School Library Journal.

Cat Vs. Dog! Princess Puffybottom... and Darryl by Susin Nielsen

Princess Puffybottom had the perfect life.

As the only pet and cosseted cat, the Princess has it made. Her doting owners prepare delectable dishes for her dinner, and if breakfast is a bit late, a mere touch of a velvet paw has them up and dishing food out straightaway.

And they took care of more... delicate matters!

All she has to do to keep her owners happy is a bit of purring and lap-sitting and a little cutesy cat play. It's a great gig!

But then... her owners surprise her with ... Darryl the disgusting dog.

He was horrible.

Darryl chews up socks and throws them back up, along with... revolting stomach contents. He drinks from toilets. He destroys almost anything he can get in his little fangs. Princess Puffybottom is sure his departure must be imminent. And finally one of her owners takes him away. Hurray! Darryl has been summarily banished from her kingdom.But then he returns, wearing a truly stupid, totally un-chic cone around his neck. Definitely not de rigueur attire! And to make matters worse, her people seem more devoted to Darryl than ever.

She tried sabotage.

Puffybottom plants shoes where she knows Darryl will demolish them. She even, ugh, provides evidence of an, er, accident on the carpet. But her owners seem undeterred as far as Darryl's failings go.

But then Princess Puffybottom notices that Darryl is falling under her spell. He is attentive and empathetic. He is clever at getting into the garbage for some exotic snacks. And, yes, the dumb dog clearly adores her. Maybe having a admiring doggy around isn't so bad.

It's the eternal war between dogs and cats, in Susin Nielsen's brand-new Princess Puffybottom . . . and Darryl (Tundra Books, 2019),  a cat's-eye view of  being co-pets, full of critter psychology and with a surprise ending for young readers to enjoy. Nielsen's narrative tone and well-planned page turns make for some snickers, and artist Olivia Chin Mueller comes up with just the right amount of cat scheming and charm which illuminate the text. Kirkus seconds the wish pet-loving kids will feel in their starred review: "Nielsen's tale and Mueller's digitally created pooch and puss pair perfectly. . . . Princess and Darryl need a sequel."

What's in YOUR Doghouse? Dogasaurus Rex by Anna Stanizsewski

BEN COULDN'T WAIT TO FIND THE BEST DOG IN THE WORLD.

Ben and Mom are off to the animal shelter, where he finds dogs galore--large and small, cute and funny, quiet and loud. But Ben wants to find the special dog just for him. And at the back corner of the shelter, in an extra-large cage, he finds just the one he wants, wagging her tail. It's love at first sight. He names her Sadie.

ROAR! SAID SADIE.

"THAT DOG SURE HAS A STRANGE BARK!" SAID BEN'S MOM.

Mom and Ben walk his new pet toward home, Ben proudly leading his pet with a garden hose put into service as a leash.

"SHE'S KINDA FUNNY LOOKING," SAID THE KIDS. "DOES SHE KNOW ANY TRICKS?"

Ben tells Sadie to sit, and she does--right on top of a parked car. She rolls over, taking out a corner fruit stand. And when Ben tells her to fetch, she obediently returns with a mail truck. The police officer advises Ben to take his pet home--pronto.

Ben builds a really big doghouse for his pet. He rubs her belly and tells her she's the best dog ever.

ROAR!

Then Ben thinks it's time for Sadie to go potty. She happily obliges, leaving quite a pile behind. The neighbors are disgruntled and tell Ben to get busy cleaning up behind his pet post haste.

And then Sadie gets hungry! But a bowl of kibble is not nearly enough to fill her enormous tummy. She downs the whole bag of dog food and finishes up by eating all of the food in the house. Mom shakes her head sadly.

"WE MIGHT HAVE TO TAKE HER BACK!"

But before Mom can put that sad conclusion into action, fate steps in. At a cry of "Stop, thief!" Sadie goes into watchdog mode and fetches the thief, who strangely offers no resistance when Sadie squashes his getaway car. All's well that ends with a happy ROAR, in Anna Staniszewski's Dogosaurus Rex (Henry Holt and Company, 2017).

Although author Staniszewski's plotline borrows heavily from those famous faves of former decades, Syd Hoff's Danny and the Dinosaur and Norman Bridwell's Clifford The Big Red Dog (Clifford 8x8),artist Kevin Hawkes' comic illustrations give this one a definitely different look from their plot look-alikes, making it clear to savvy kids from the git-go that this pet is no dog, but a well-behaved dinosaur of the T. Rex persuasion,  a conceit that gives youngsters a happy chance to giggle at the clueless grownups who take Ben's pet for a strange breed of canine.

For storytime literary lessons, this new one offers a perfect opportunity to read along with its precursors, asking those compare-and-contrast questions, "What's the same"" and "What's different?" For thematic purposes, pair this one with Steven Krensky's Dinosaurs in Disguise or Carol and Donald Carrick's classic, Patrick's Dinosaurs (Clarion books).

It Takes All Kinds! Some Pets by Angela Di Terlizzi

SOME PETS SLITHER.

SOME PETS BOUND.

SOME PETS SCURRY

ROUND AND ROUND!

There's a pet show in the park, and our pigtailed journalist, camera in hand, is off to photograph the whole event.

All the critters do their thing. Some hop, some crawl. Some don't do much at all. Some are quiet; some are squawky! Some are playful, and some are talky!

A hamster races around on his wheel, while horses just stand and munch in the field. Kittens just want to play, while dogs show off their "sit and stay."

There's a lot going on down in the park, with plenty of action--the focus of Angela Di Terlizzi's newly published Some Pets (Beach Lane Books, 2016). Di Terlizzi's rhythmic quatrains focus on verbs, action words which describe the varied behaviors of this assortment of animals. Verbs like slither and nuzzle expand the vocabulary of young readers, while pointing up the differences between these potential pets--fluffy, scaly, feathery, silly--underscore what it is that makes one a perfect best friend for just the right child. Which is the winner? Which is best in show? Wait till the end, and you'll soon know.

Brendan Wenzel's detailed cut-paper collage illustrations manage to control and corral the menagerie meaningfully within the pages, opening with a wide, double-page view of the whole scene and then zooming in on small vignettes of the vista, featuring each group of animals described in the author's verses. This is a picture book with plenty of possibilities as a read-aloud for a single child or a small group over a range of ages, from easy questions like "What is this pet?" to questions about vocabulary ("What animal do you see that slithers"? "Which one is being cuddled?)" or for sharing queries such as "Which pet is like your pet?" or "Which one would not be a good pet for you?" The author handily offers a helpful appendix with an illustrated glossary of the animals shown in the text, "What's That Pet?" which encourages individual kids to ponder and go back into the text to find each one.

Share and pair this one with its companion book by Di Terlizzi and Wenzel, Some Bugs (Classic Board Books). (See my 2014 review here).