Spencer’s New Pet by Jessie Sima. PICTURE BOOK Simon and Schuster, 2019. $18.
BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3) – OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
This wordless picture book depicts a little
boy and his red balloon dog. The boy
loves and cares for his balloon as though he were real, including feeding and
watering him, a vet visit and taking him for a walk. When the balloon dog gets away from the boy,
they get caught in the middle of a game of pin the tale on the donkey and the
pin pops a balloon. In a weird twist, all
that is left after the pop is the little boy’s glasses and the balloon
dog. A mime comes over and makes a
balloon boy and the boy and dog return to their happy selves.
The illustrations are all black and white,
except for the red balloon dog and they are appealing and tell a great story
until the popping occurs. The twist of
having the boy be a balloon as well as the dog is confusing, because the balloon dog looks
like a balloon and the boy looks like a boy, so I’m not sure how that
works. Maybe I don’t have a good enough
imagination, but my two boys read it as well, and when we got done reading we all thought, “huh, weird”.
Reviewer, C. Peterson.
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