cover image The Pug Who Wanted to Be a Unicorn (The Pug Who Wanted to Be...)

The Pug Who Wanted to Be a Unicorn (The Pug Who Wanted to Be...)

Bella Swift. Aladdin, $17.99 (160p) ISBN 978-1-5344-8678-2

Seeking her forever home, a puppy desperately tries to become the pet she believes her adoptive family wants: a unicorn. Peggy, an inquisitive young pug with floppy black ears, wants an owner’s love most of all. But love comes with strings attached with her negligent first owner, before Peggy is fostered by a cued-white family of five over Christmas. As the family reels from the recent loss of their previous dog, Peggy wonders if they’ll ever love another as much. Hatching a plan to become a unicorn (“I can be anything I want to be... so I’ll be a unicorn!”), Peggy makes her best attempts, with messy results. Nevertheless, the family continues to show Peggy patience and kindness. Black-and-white sketched illustrations are interspersed throughout as Swift pens a warmly familial story through the eyes of a pup who thinks love is earnable—when really the family “wanted her all along.” Ages 7–10. (Aug.)