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Sophie Corrigan is a freelance illustrator and author from Lancashire, UK. She has illustrated many diverse items from books to calendars to T-shirts and more! When not illustrating and maintaining her online art shops, Sophie spends the spare time she has going to shows, watching nature programs, eating vegetarian food, hanging out with her pet cockatiels, and occasionally crafting cute things from wool and clay.
Diligence and openheartedness are the themes of this rhyming story by Corrigan (The Not Bad Animals), but its real appeal lies in its eccentric cast: each character is a mash-up of a vegetable and animal species, with a hybrid name that evokes Parentese. The eponymous Pugtato, a roly-poly tuber-puppy who lives in a vegetable patch, discovers the mysterious and seemingly inanimate 'Thing'--pearly pink and shaped like a Nautilus shell--and wants to do right by it. But friends like Tweetroot, a beet-red bird, and Carrat, who's bright orange and toothy, are only interested in Thing for their own purposes ('Carrat thought Thing/ was for gnawing and chewing'). Finally, the wise Unicorn on the Cob advises from a leafy stalk, 'you must follow your heart./ For it holds all the answers/ and sets you apart'; thus inspired, Pugtato hugs Thing, and it blossoms into a new friend. While the book's earnestness is undeniable, its real impact may be in the giggles it inspires when readers next see a salad or produce stand. Ages 4--8. * Publishers Weekly *
