Take Your Pet to School Day
Written by Linda Ashman, Illustrated by Suzanne Kaufman
Random House, 2019; 978-1524765590. July 2019.
Honors & Reviews
Children’s Choices Reading List 2020
Washington Children’s Choices Award Nominee
“Ashman’s vivacious rhymes and Kaufman’s lovingly detailed illustrations bring a far-fetched dream to life in this larky story. . . highly entertaining.” New York Times Book Review
“Funny and imaginative from start to finish.” Booklist
“Devious pets change the school rule that bans them and experience a day of chaos and animal love. . . Ashman’s verses are bouncy, and Kaufman’s brightly colored artwork will have readers poring over the details in her busy scenes and laughing at all the mischief. This will certainly have readers yearning for pet days at their own schools.” Kirkus
Themes: Back to School • Pets • Behavior • Humor • Read-Aloud • Rhyme • Repetition
Washington Children’s Choices Activity Guide:
Click below for a few sample pages.
Illustrations copyright 2019 by Suzanne Kaufman. Random House, July 2019.
About this Story
Maple View School sends home a flyer inviting kids to bring their pets to school on Friday.
What could possibly go wrong??
Quite a bit, as it turns out. The pets aren’t exactly well-behaved. They make a mess in art class, won’t sit still for story time, and are extremely rude eaters.
Who invited them anyway? Not the teachers. Certainly not the principal. Not even the kids. Was it the pets themselves?
This was a story that sat in my file drawers for a long time before I figured out what to do with it. I write about that journey in this blog post. And if you’d like to read more about Suzanne’s illustration process, don’t miss our interview over at PictureBookBuilders.com.
On the last page of the book, the principal brings her own two dogs to school, modeled after my own gorgeous Sammy and Stella. A very special gift from Suzanne Kaufman.