A book can help with
For the campaign for a puppy, and everything that comes after the yes.
Few campaigns are run with more determination than a child’s for a pet. And whether the answer is yes, no, or not yet, there’s a useful conversation in it about what caring for a living thing actually involves, once the novelty of the first week has worn off.
Books do that conversation for you. Some are very funny about the pleading and the promising, which takes the heat out of the subject. Others show the daily, unglamorous work of feeding and walking and clearing up. Both are worth reading before any animal arrives.
Here’s what I’d reach for. Find your child’s age and start there. If you’ve lost a pet, the page on losing something loved has gentler books for that.
Loving an animal
For the very youngest it’s the simple pleasure of an animal in the house, and learning to be gentle with it.
Lola wants a cat, so she reads up on what cats need, gets everything ready, and then welcomes one home. It walks a toddler through the preparation as much as the pet, which is a rather good habit to start. Warm, and part of a lovely series.
or on Bookshop.org
The Pigeon pleads and wheedles and promises anything for a puppy, and then meets one and has second thoughts. It’s hilarious, and the recognition on a small child’s face is worth a great deal. Perfect for reading in the middle of an ongoing pet campaign.
or on Bookshop.org
The great campaign
At this age the pleading is in full swing. These are funny about it and honest about what a pet actually needs.
Alex and his mother negotiate over an iguana entirely in notes passed back and forth, each with their own excellent points. It’s very funny, and it quietly models a real conversation about responsibility rather than a row. Children love that the child’s side is taken seriously.
or on Bookshop.org
Arthur wants a puppy, so his parents ask him to prove he’s responsible first, and he ends up minding a menagerie including a boa constrictor. It shows a child earning the trust rather than just wanting the pet. A good one to read before you make any promises.
or on Bookshop.org
The real work
Older children can take a fuller story about the bond with an animal, and the responsibility that comes with it.
A boy must prove he can handle chores before he’s allowed a dog, while nearby an abandoned dog survives on the streets, and the two stories move steadily towards each other. It’s satisfying and warm, and it takes both responsibility and animal welfare seriously. A good read for a child campaigning hard.
or on Bookshop.org
Louis takes on a sickly newborn donkey that nobody expects to survive, and the daily work of keeping him alive changes them both. Creech is lovely on what caring for an animal does for a child. Tender, and quietly encouraging for a self-doubting reader.
or on Bookshop.org
What it actually costs
An older child can grasp that an animal is a responsibility with some moral weight attached. What follows treats that seriously rather than sweetly.
Marty finds a beagle being badly treated and hides him, which means lying to his parents every day and eventually striking a deal with the man who owns him. A Newbery winner, and the knot at the centre of it is a real one. There is cruelty to the dog, kept offstage but not softened, so it suits a child who can hold that.
or on Bookshop.org
A Mesopotamian Blue who has never been outdoors has to leave the house and learn to survive on the street, taught an ancient cat martial art by an ancestor who visits him in dreams. Dave McKean’s illustrations make it. For the child who wants a cat book that is not a gentle one.
or on Bookshop.org
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Something to do together
A page for working out what a pet actually needs each day, and who in the family will really be doing it. I’m making it now, and it will live here soon.
A pet teaches a child a great deal about routine, gentleness and putting somebody else first. It also, realistically, teaches the grown-ups that they will be doing more of the walking than was agreed.
So talk through the daily work before the animal arrives, give a child jobs that genuinely matter, and expect to pick up the slack cheerfully. The bond a child forms with an animal is usually worth every bit of it.
These pages are written for the grown-ups looking after a child: parents, teachers and carers. A good book can sit beside a worried child, though it never stands in for a real conversation, or for proper support when something feels too big to carry alone.