I feel like I have to start by saying that David Sedaris is one of my favourite essayists. Normally I think he’s absolutely hilarious. But I didn’t like this book.
I think it’s because I was waiting for the ‘and the moral of the story is…’ at the end, since it felt kind of like a children’s book, seeing as it’s short stories about animals. And to be fair, I never much liked children’s books, or books about animals even when I was a child. So me not liking this is almost definitely not Sedaris’s fault.
It’s not a children’s book in terms of the actual content of the stories at all, but I guess maybe you could get away with reading it to your kid before she’s old enough to understand the sex jokes, since it has pictures! And the illustrations are by the guy who did the Olivia series of books, so now you’ve got a whole new perspective on kid lit, I guess.
Fun fact: I have a teacher friend who first introduced me to Olivia (she’s a big fan), and she’s the BEST for reading it out loud.
Put the Book Down 