Unusual Pet Pals

Unusual Pet Pals is the perfect book for children who want a dog or a cat as a pet but are encountering some parental resistance. What could be a better negotiating tactic than to share this book’s contents with a stubborn mother or father. Most parents, when faced with the possibility of having to share their home with a Madagascar hissing cockroach, a tarantula or a snake, will quickly opt for the cute puppy or cuddly kitty.

The other nine books in the “Pet Pals” series each deal in some depth with a single pet type, such as rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, fish and birds. In Unusual Pet Pals, via two-page chapters, Jacobs introduces children to the possibility of having chinchillas, degus, snakes, turtles, salamanders, axolotls, newts, frogs, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, tarantulas, stick insects and mantises as pets. For those, like me, who are unfamiliar with the term degus and axolotls, the former are rodents native to Chile while the latter are a type of salamander that does not routinely undergo metamorphosis from the larval to adult form and remains aquatic its entire life. An axolotl can be seen on the cover of Unusual Pet Pals

Like the earlier books, the highly illustrated content of Unusual Pet Pals presented in bite-size text boxes is intended to serve as pre-purchase/pre-adoption advice to those considering adding a pet to their homes. However, unlike the other books that had separate chapters dealing with such practical matters as the housing, feeding, daily care and training of a specific animal as well as its safety and health issues, Unusual Pet Pals can only present a once-over-lightly take on these matters in the two pages devoted to each animal. The book does maintain the series’ inclusion of a 10 question quiz, a “Learning More” page which directs readers to related books and websites, and a closing page that is shared between an index and a glossary of words highlighted in the text.

Of the books presently released in the “Pet Pals” series, Unusual Pet Pals is the one that will most likely be read just for fun rather than as a practical tool to be used in selecting and caring for a pet.