Maverick and Me

Schwarzenegger—author, ASPCA Ambassador, and eldest daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver—draws from personal experience in a sentimental story based on her own rescue dog. As the story opens, Maverick is alone under a freeway underpass on a rainy day; a woman brings him to a pet supply store, whose manager recommends that she temporarily care for him until an upcoming pet adoption event. The woman’s fostering of Maverick goes unseen as the story jumps ahead to the adoption event, where Maverick is passed over by several visitors before winning the heart of a girl named Scarlett, whose mother agrees to adopt the puppy. Aside from the gloomy opening scene and the light tension surrounding whether Maverick will find a “forever-home,” this is a rosy portrait of pet adoption: like Scarlett, who throws a party in order to tell her friends all about adopting Maverick, Schwarzenegger’s goal seems largely to draw attention to “all the other dogs just like Maverick that needed homes too.” Harris’s smudgy-edged, mixed-media artwork can be overly sketchlike at times, but Scarlett’s adoration for her new pet comes through clearly. Ages 4–7. [em](Sept.) [/em]