Arthur's Pet Business Sparknotes

The book I chose for this discussion was Marc Brown’s “Arthur’s Pet Business” (Brown, Marc 1993) It is one book of a much larger series, focused on characters who are designed traditionally from currently existing animals. For instance, the main character, Arthur, is based on an aardvark, which means earth pig, in the South African language. In this book, Arthur desperately wishes to own a pet and asks his parents for permission. The parents are fine with the possibility, but wish to see if Arthur has the dedication to take care of one for a long term. After trying to figure out what to do with his friends, Buster, a bunny, and Muffy and Francine who are both monkeys, Arthur comes up with the plan of creating a small pet business, in which he could take care of his neighbors’ pets. Thus, he begins taking care of his neighbor, Mrs. Wood’s dog, Perky. Over a …show more content…
It is far more entertaining that your stuffed animal is a full-grown character in a book compared to some randomly named boy or girl. Reading through the story, you hardly even notice that the characters are animals, or that they are animals taking care of animals, as their interactions give it a more human feeling. The actual reasoning for the authors choice in the characters all being animals was the bedtime stories he told his child. “One time I told him a story about an aardvark, and it just seemed to make sense to him to name the aardvark Arthur!” (PBS 2017) Each of the books teaches lifelong lessons. Having the ones teaching these lessons being animals makes it easier for children to listen, to understand, all the while being entertained in such a way that makes it vastly more difficult if they were to be replaced with people. Marc Brown has crafted an entity which many will cherish for years to come. All due to the power of an aardvark and his