Marty McGuire Has Too Many Pets by Kate Messner (review)

Generous-hearted but a bit impulsive, third-grader Marty McGuire cooks up a pet-sitting scheme to raise money for a sanctuary for retired laboratory chimpanzees, but soon runs into trouble. For one thing, she overzealously takes on not only a hedgehog and a pair of fish, but also a swearing parrot, two hamsters, a slug, and a six-foot-long snake. She also doesn’t fully inform her dad and her visiting grandmother what she’s doing, which means she has to rely on her friends to help her out with all the pet care. When one of the hamsters and the snake escape their cages, Marty is really in a bind—especially when the snake turns up with a hamster-sized lump in its belly. After a full confession to her family, Marty faces the hard fact that most of the money she has raised will go towards cage repairs, but a nick-of-time discovery (the missing hamster was not swallowed but stowed away in Grandma’s suitcase) and a last-minute school presentation about the chimp sanctuary save the day for Marty, salvaging her pet business reputation and raising the money she needs to “adopt” several of the sanctuary’s chimps. Clear, crisp writing, elementary vocabulary, and a large font make the book a quick read and help ease the way for young chapter-book readers. The tidy lines and subtle shadings of Floca’s frequent monochromatic illustrations enhance the casually but carefully told narrative. Likable no-frills Marty will appeal to both boys and girls, and fans of Nagda’s The Perfect Cat-Sitter (BCCB 1/08) or Wells’ Ivy Takes Care (BCCB 3/13) may particularly enjoy this title.