What If We Had A Pet Shark? - Deanna Chesley - ★★★

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AUTHOR: Deanna Chesley
ILLUSTRATOR: Roksana Barwinska
GENRE: Children's Picture Book.
PUBLICATION DATE: July 29, 2021
RATING: 3 stars.

Just a fun book full of imagination. No message or purpose here.

The author’s daughter Ellie had asked her the question “What if we had a pet shark?”. Based on this query, the mother and daughter created an entire scenario of what would happen if we had unusual pets at home. That’s how the idea for this book came up.

The story also has a little girl named Ellie. She has been on a field trip and when she comes home, she asks her mother the question in the title. Their discussion covers a variety of animals such as sharks, snakes, skunks, bears, giraffes and so on. Each question is answered with one idea of what activity could be done with that animal.

The book is written in rhythmic prose, though not all the rhymes are balanced. This makes for a slightly lopsided reading. The illustrations are absolutely sweet.

This could be a nice way of learning names of new animals and also to open the doors of your imagination wide: what would you do indeed if you had a shark as your pet?

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