Sparky by Jenny Offill

I love sloths. They’re cute, sleepy, and pretty much harmless. I read Sparky and it seems to me that the moral of the story is that sloths aren’t good pets, or sometimes you just have to make do with what you can get…

The mom is obviously not paying much attention to her poor lonely child, and instead of suggesting a fish or something practical, tells the kid that she can get something that doesn’t require any care. She is dismissive. A good point in the book then comes when she gets help from a librarian. But her information hunt leads to her getting a sloth in the mail who looks depressed most of the book because he just wants to sleep. The girl is disappointed in Sparky and gets made fun of and in the end she even takes his cookie away! The sloth looks disappointed because he is supposed to be fulfilling this little girl’s dreams and is falling short. He knows this because he gets poked with a stick and is made to do strange activities. He never even gets to go in the house or get a hug. This book could have gone a different route and explained the traits of sloths or where they’re from. It could have said that they deal with deforestation and sometimes people have to rescue them. Instead it is a disheartening story about a girl and her disappointing pet that we don’t really know anything about except that he’s lazy. I thought the story and illustrations were sad and I’d be much more likely to give a child a nonfiction book about sloths or at least something that won’t make them cry.