LitPick Review
Piki Goes to College tells the real life story of Piki, a dog, from his point of view. The story starts with Piki meeting Joan in the animal shelter or as he calls it “jail.” Joan adopts Piki, and Piki meets Joan’s other dogs, Buster and Raleigh. First Piki goes through basic training and then begins training as a service dog. Piki says this was difficult and learning to behave was a challenge. Piki tells the reader about the training service dogs go through and how they help people. Eventually, Piki and Joan become instructors and start to train other dogs and owners.
Opinion:
Piki goes to College is a great book to teach young children about service animals and how to behave around them. The author did a wonderful job writing from Piki’s perspective as a clever and mischievous dog. It teaches about how you can recognize when a service animal is trying to get help for it’s owner and what not to do, such as petting the dog to make sure it is not distracted. However, the writing can feel a bit drawn out when explaining this, breaking up the pace. It doesn’t detract from the book much since it is mostly interweaved with Piki’s humorous narration of what she liked and disliked about training. I would recommend this to anyone trying to teach a younger child about service animals and what they do.
