The book Finding Susie by Sandra Day O'Connor is a book about a little girl that really wants a pet and lives on a ranch. Living in the desert and living on a ranch, she is surrounded by animals but does not have any that she can bring into her house and call a pet. For her first pet, she finds a tortoise and names it Hercules. Sandra, the little girl, keeps Hercules for a while and decides that he is not friendly enough and not a good pet. She realizes that Hercules should be back in the wild with his family and so she and her father take him back into the desert where they found him. The next animal she finds and tries to keep as a pet is a rabbit. She names the rabbit Daisy and is able to even bring Daisy into the house at times. But soon it is clear that Daisy is too fearful to be a good pet and so she and her father took Daisy down to the bushes by the windmill and she hopped away without even a backwards look. The third pet she tries is a coyote that was caught in a trap on the ranch. They took the coyote out of the trap and brought it up to the house in a cage to allow its leg to heal. Sandra tried to turn the coyote into a pet and named him Slim Pickins. No matter how hard she tried, Slim Pickins did not want anything to do with humans and so they took Slim Pickins back into the wild and let him go. The fourth animal she tried to turn into a pet was a baby bobcat and Sandra named him Bob. Bob was good pet until he grew up and became possessive of food and scared Sandra. Two years later after Bob was fully grown, he left in the middle of the night. The last pet that Sandra gets in a dog, and she names the dog Susie. Susie turned out to be everything Sandra was looking for in a pet and she fell in love with Susie and Susie lover her back.
This book is really cute and it great for a young child when they are wanting a pet. Many times, children decide they want a certain animal, whether or not they would make good pets. By giving them examples of pet that are not the best idea, children may understand why their parents tell them no when asking for certain animals. This book is also just a fun read for a read aloud. It could open up discussion in the classroom about what pets all of the students have, what pets they would like to have, and what pets they may be getting. Young children love to talk about their animals and home life and this would give every student a chance to share to the whole class. I like this book simple because I have had many different pet through out my childhood and I think it is a good experience for children. The illustrations are very detailed and give a good picture of Susie's experience going through all of the different pets. I could not find any awards this book has won.
Pohrt, Tom (2009). Finding Susie. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
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