Extreme Pets! (review)

This high-energy guide describes a panoply of nontraditional pets, dividing them into four categories: cold-blooded (for snakes and lizards), pocket pets (small mammals such as sugar gliders, ferrets, and hedgehogs), insects (ranging from creepy-crawlies such as the Madagascan hissing cockroach and the tarantula to the monarch butterfly), and slimy pets (toads, frogs, and slugs). Each of the twenty-one featured animals receives a few breezy pages of information, including a "Report Card" feature that grades the prospective pet candidly on coolness, aroma, neatness, ease of care, and cost factor. There are more than a few formatting and conceptual glitches (and the creative manipulation of photographic images is at times simply misleading), but the combination of information, enthusiasm, and irreverence packed into a browsable and visually appealing format is easy to love (which is more than can be said for some of the featured pets). The tone creates an enjoyable sense of clubbiness, with those interested in weird pets clearly Us to the disapproving adult Them, and even reluctant readers will be all over this like musk on a ferret. A concluding section gives kids hints on winning parents over to the extreme-pet concept, and an index is appended.