Anna's Pet

by Margaret Atwood, Joyce Barkhouse, Ann Blades (Illustrator)

While visiting her grandparents' farm, city girl Anna decides she wants a pet. A cow? A snake? Anna realizes that these creatures won't be happy in the city, and she doesn't want a pet unless it's happy. Grandma and Grandpa have just the right thing for Anna.

Short chapters and easy-to-read text make this story perfect for beginning readers.

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth ­ in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.

Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.

Reviews

[Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it's difficult to detect whose hand wrote which lines in any dual authored book should you want to, I didn't find much of the Atwood that I enjoy so much in this book. Touches, yes, certainly in the closing line, and in the overall themes of the necessity of temperance in the face of desire and proper relation of the indiviudal to the natural world - but the wit and the word play, indeed the darkness, weren't really the point of this book. It is pleasant for what it is, but I found it difficult to take pleasure in it.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Clunky dialogue although it is an informative book for young city kids.

[Suzanne Snead · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anna, a young city girl visits her grandparents who live on a farm in the country and decides she wants a pet. She explores her surroundings and discovers there are many creatures that might serve as good pets, everything from toads and worms, to snakes and tadpoles. With each creature encounter she learns a little about its habitat and, with the help of her grandparents, draws conclusions as to why they would not make good pets. Anna is about to give up when her grandmother suggests a tadpole. Much to Anna's dismay, grandmother tells her that it's not the fish Anna believes it to be; instead, that it will grow and change into something brand new. The story concludes with Anna finally being content with her new pet and, although disappointed, understanding that when it becomes a frog she will have to release it back into the wild where it belongs. Her grandmother reminds her that it's hard to keep hold of anything forever, wise advice for anyone.

Although the writing style and story line are appropriate for the fiction genre, the interest level and reading level do not match the beginning reader category for which it is intended. The illustrations are lackluster and "not kid appealing" as per the first and second grade students surveyed.

[Rosa Cline · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an okay book about a little girl that wanted to have a pet to take care of. She didn't know enough about animals but goes out in the outside and just starts picking up various animals including a snake. The idea behind the story was 'there' but just didn't play out very well.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anna's got a lot to learn about pet care!