Maggie Rudy spent part of her childhood living in England, where she visited Beatrix Potter’s farm on a formative third-grade field trip. She has since been making mice and their worlds out of felt and scavenged materials for more than twenty years. Maggie lives in Portland, Oregon, and you can see more of her work at MousesHouses.blogspot.com.
"Quirky dioramas illustrate this explication of pet care. Rudy's
carefully composed scenes feature clever components and unexpected
details, including felted figures, repurposed household objects,
torn paper and objects from the natural world. . . . The
illustrations, meanwhile, provide offbeat extensions of the simple
text."
*Kirkus Reviews, April 2014*
"What makes this book stand apart from the pack are Rudy’s
squeal-inducing photographs of the quirky dioramas she has created
with mouse figurines, miniature props, and backdrops in the form of
evocative collages of textbook pages, leaves, stamps, acorns, and
more...readers will practically die that these play sets aren’t for
sale.... It’s whole gobs of fun watching the mice react with
shocked, studious, or satisfied expressions, which will likely be
mirrored by readers."
*Booklist, May 2014*
* "This ordinary pet book is transformed by Rudy's (The House That
Mouse Built) beguiling handmade mice, which she poses and
photographs in scenes made even more fetching with dozens of small
props. That the pet-owners are small, pet-worthy mice is the source
of many smiles. . . . The layout is spare and elegant, and the
typography clear and understated. With lots to look at on each
page, readers have the chance to imagine what life would be like on
an entirely different scale."
*Publishers Weekly, April 2014, *STARRED REVIEW**
"[S]nuggle up to I Wish I Had a Pet and revel in the world that
Rudy has created. . . . Each spread is a marvel of a little mouse
world where young children will want to explore all the details.
Through these amazing scenes, Rudy offers wise advice about pet
ownership. . . . It will be hard to resist the call for a pet after
reading this treasure to your pet-starved youngster."
*BookPage, June 2014*
"Using found art and some handmade items, Rudy has created an
imaginative world filled with mice and the pets they might make
their own—or not. . . . This tale would be useful as a model for
writing about the pets children want, and art teachers could make a
lesson exposing children to using found objects in their work."
*School Library Journal, July 2014*
"Where you find children, there you will find pet owners—or at
least children who aspire to have creatures all their own, which
they double-triple swear they will take care of, promise! In "I
Wish I Had a Pet". . . Maggie Rudy moves this familiar yearning
from the human world to a hilarious series of photographed tableaux
featuring felt-and-fabric mice so cunningly devised that they
almost look real. . . . Ms. Rudy's narration emphasizes that pets
require conscientious care and a certain amount of respect. . . .
This sweet, visually detailed picture book would be ideal for a 3-
to-7-year-old whose parents show signs of succumbing to a
please-may-I-have-a-pet campaign."
*The Wall Street Journal, June 2014*
"Fashionably dressed mice give advice about owning a pet. . . . The
book features adorable photographic images of the mice with their
own pets such as bumblebees, ladybugs, and butterflies."
*Library Media Connection, October 2014, Recommended*
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