My Tiny Pet

What a terrible book! This is one of the worst picture books I've read, and I've read more than 400. The author wanted to shed light on the tardigrade, a microscopic animal similar to a bear, and I loved this original idea. But oh my, the entire book went so wrong after this initial idea.

We follow a couple and their young girl as they live in a gigantic house populated with dozens of animals: octopus, raccoons, cats, dogs, turtles, birds... You name it. One day, the parents decide to downsize and to move in a small cabin in the woods. So just like that, they get rid of all their pets. Settled in their new house covered with the posters of their previous animals, the girl asks to have at least one pet at home, but her parents refuse.

One day, the girl finds the perfect solution in the name of a tardigrade, and the parents agree. The book becomes even more terrible in the way the girl convinces the parents, claiming that if they forget to feed it or give it water, it's fine, it can still live up to 10 years! So yeah, it's fine if this new pet suffers, is starving or is dehydrated, it will still painfully survive! OMG!

I wish that instead, the family would have had no pets to start with, so no need to ““discard”” unwanted pets, and they would have naturally transitioned to their tiny home, adopted the tardigrade and voilà, healthy story!

PS: the animals in the original house were abused in terms of living conditions (octopus lived in a bocal barely larger than him), were eating each other (the snake and the octopus ate other pets) and lived in a complete mess.

Read and reviewed: 2020-01-03