"If you want to have fun without worry,/ Listen to what you should do:/ Leave all of the animals tucked in at home/ And take only people with you." Ireland (Wonderful Nature, Wonderful You) proves this concluding advice applies to every possible pet and situation, whether it involves a duck at a wedding reception (the waterfowl may use the punch fountain as a splash pool) or an elephant at the beach (the pachyderm will require countless bottles of sunscreen, and "You'll barely cover his legs"). The rhyme and meter can be hit and miss, but many of the scenarios will keep readers in stitches. Catrow's (Plantzilla) editorial-style watercolors, with their distorted perspectives and goofy details (one of the mall stores pictured bears the sign "Tons of Putty"), plunge readers into a funhouse-mirror world. A redheaded boy resembling an upside-down bowling pin owns the pets in question; his presence unites the spreads and his expressions offer witty punctuation to every improbable scenario. When confronted by a movie usher about his moose companion, for instance, he flashes a theatrically innocent smile; when a huge pet pig wallows in the mud of a planter at the mall, he shoots the animal a look of disdain worthy of any frustrated parent. Readers will likely relish this extended retort to the perennial question, "Why can't the pet come?" Ages 3-7. (May)
