Monday, August 07, 2017

My Favorite Pets

My Favorite Pets: By Gus W. for Ms. Smolinski's Class. Jeanne Birdsall. Illustrated by Harry Bliss. 2016. 40 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: My favorite pet is sheep. We have seventeen in our yard. Seventeen sheep are still sheep, not sheeps.

Premise/plot: Gus is writing a report for his teacher. It is ALL about sheep and then some. As his report progresses, it gets wackier and wackier. It goes from "A boy sheep is a ram. He has horns" to "Sheep won't ride a skateboard, no matter how long you teach them." I must say that it reveals more about Gus himself than the sheep he professes to love.

My thoughts: I like this one. I do. The narrative voice is very strong with Gus. I like the format, seeing the 'handwriting' of this report. The dialogue is also nice. But I think more than anything, I love the illustrations.

Text: 3 out of 5
Illustrations: 5 out of 5
Total: 8 out of 10

© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I think Harry Bliss is great and underrated. Thanks.