Pets and Their Famous Humans, by Ana Gallo/Illustrated by Katherine Quinn, (Apr. 2020, Prestel Publishing), $17.95, ISBN: 978-3-7913-7425-3
Ages 8-12
People love their pets. They’re our babies, our muses, our best friends. Pets and Their Famous Humans takes a look at 20 famous pet-human duos throughout history. There are dogs and cats, sure, but there’s also Dorothy Parker’s crocodiles, adopted by the writer when they were left in a New York taxi. There’s Grip, Charles Dickens’ talking raven (who you can also visit, albeit stuffed, in the Free Library of Philadelphia), Granizo, Frida Kahlo’s fawn, and Babou, Salvador Dali’s ocelot. There are pampered pooches and cats, like Archie, Andy Warhol’s dachshund, who had a gold Tiffany & Co. charm on his collar, and Karl Lagerfeld’s cat, Choupette, who sported a diamond-encrusted collar and had her own assistant. Many of the pets were their human companions’ muses, sitting with them and inspiring artwork, or support animals, providing unconditional love and a calming presence.
Each spread offers a biographical spread on the celebrity pet, with a small bio on their companion human. Color paintings of each famous human-pet pairing, which one can easily imagine hanging in one’s salon. This is a fun choice for animal lovers.
Mom Read It 