The Animal Rescue Store

by Elizabeth Swados, Anne Wilson (Illustrations)

Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Liz Swados shows her animal magnetism with this hilarious pet store poetry collection.

Cats, dogs, turtles, emus -- there's a place and poem in SIDNEY'S ANIMAL RESCUE STORE for every kind of critter. Meet heavy metal cockatoos who like to rock and roll, snooty llamas speaking French, alley cats with attitude, and even a batch of baby alligators.

Kids will tweet, howl or hiss along to the romping rhythms of Liz Swados's poems and the colorful fun of Anne's Wilson's illustrations.

48 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Elizabeth Swados (February 5, 1951 – January 5, 2016) was an American writer, composer, musician and theatre director. While some of her subject matter is humorous, such as her satirical look at Ronald Reagan (Rap Master Ronnie) and Doonesbury — both collaborations with Garry Trudeau — much of her work deals with darker issues such as racism, murder and mental illness.

Born February 5, 1951 in Buffalo, New York, Swados wrote about her life in her 1991 autobiography, The Four of Us, A Family Memoir, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Her father, Robert O. Swados, was a successful attorney who helped Seymour H. Knox III convert the local Buffalo Sabres hockey club into a full National Hockey League team. His autobiography, Counsel in the Crease: A Big League Player in the Hockey Wars was published by Prometheus Books in 2005.

Her mother struggled with depression, while her older brother (and only sibling) Lincoln developed schizophrenia. Her mother committed suicide in 1974, and Lincoln died in 1989. Swados suffered from depression, a condition she discussed in her book, My Depression: A Picture Book.

She studied music at Bennington College in Vermont, receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973. In 1980, the Hobart and William Smith College awarded her an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters.

Swados died from complications following surgery for esophageal cancer on January 5, 2016. She was 64.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The different stories of the different animals in Sydney's pet store are fun-- but with so much commotion, no real rhyme or meter on each page, it was hard to get into the entire story, but it was still touching.

[The Brothers · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book! I couldn't even finish it. It's written in a stream of consciousness form with lots of nonsense words that is practically impossible to read aloud.

Illustrations are okay - I suppose.