Facts, historical details, and pictures about the history of pets in the home.

I love the unique combination of scientific, cultural, and historical information in this book. It is a reminder that all these fields are connected! Because so many children have pets, I think they would be interested to learn about how pets came to be in this society. I would ask students what pets they have at home, then read sections form the book that discus the historical context of those animals.

I really like the concept of this book, and I think the layout is really fun. However, I thought it was strange to randomly use computer graphics instead of real pictures (cats on page 49), and there were times when the information presented in the text was exactly the same as the captions (e.g. text and pie chart on Pet Ownership, p. 7).

Also, there were a number of times when I thought she could have had better word choice (e.g. sometimes calling rats and mice pets and then referring to them as vermin), some of the "jokes" could be seen as being a little out of line (e.g. animal lovers and pet owners would never think of buying a fur coat, let alone a fur coat for a pet - p. 35), and I was offended by her choice to label indigenous peoples as "North American Indians" and "Brazilian Indians" (pg. 22).

Finally, I thought this book provided lots of interesting information, but I wish that it would have had in-text citations, because sometimes I thought the "facts" were a little suspicious ("One upper-class Roman matron even put gold earrings on her favorite finned one" p. 22) or were presented as facts when they may not be true ("Cleopatra clasped an asp-which promptly bit her to death" p. 100), which made me trust the book/information less overall.

This is a pretty straight forward book about the history of the relationship between people and animals, primarily focusing on dogs and cats but also covering rodents, birds, fish, reptiles, and some insects. ( )

This book is a lengthy nonfiction that is good resource about different kinds of animals that have been domesticated. It covers all kinds of animals from birds to snakes.