If I Had a Raptor by George O’Connor (review)

The narrator of this picture book—an African-American girl with pigtails and a purple jumper—explains all of the things that would happen if she got a baby pet raptor: “If I had a raptor, she would like to sit on my lap, and I would let her.” The cleverness of this book lies in the fact is that you could easily replace “raptor” with “kitten,” and it almost wouldn’t change the story, with several of the raptor’s behaviors—“she would stalk the little things that catch her eye, like birds, or bugs, or even a dust bunny”—all too familiar for cat owners. The roundly cartoonish illustrations, thick and loose pencil outlines and filled in with bright, textured watercolors on glossy paper, show off the similarities. The blue, feathered raptor—a ball of fluff as a baby—grows up to curl its tail felinely around itself as it snuggles on the laundry and shine its dinner-plate eyes at night as its owner gets a glass of water. Though the most giggles will come from older kids who get the conceit in the modest comparison, even youngest ones who would thrill at the idea of a dinosaur pet will take to a storytime sharing of this imaginative tale.