ShBeep the Unique Sheep

A young girl with a soup pot on her head is walking to the school bus stop one day when she sees a very unique sheep in the field. The sheep is wearing a top hat, a feather, and a bandana. He even has a checkerboard on his legs. This is not like any other sheep the little girl had ever seen. She walks up to the fence and tells the sheep that sheep can’t play checkers. But the sheep tells her he isn’t a sheep, but a ShBeep, a very unique animal. The little girl introduces herself as Poppy, but then says she prefers to be called Pop. She is pretty unusual herself. That day she is wearing a pot on her head, because, she says, it is hat day. These two quickly decide they are a lot alike and will be friends. When Pop comes home from school, she is really sad because kids have been mean to her about wearing a pot on her head for hat day. Her new friend ShBeep makes her feel better when he starts to play imaginative games. Each day before school, they meet up and have a quick visit. Every day after school they go on adventures. One day ShBeep is covered in fleas. He teaches Pop to roll in catnip to keep the fleas away, but he doesn’t do so because he likes having fleas around for snacking. ShBeep gets a bump on the head while jumping over the fence, and Pop says he looks like a unicorn. They go to the circus, but they don’t have any money to get in. They lie to the ringmaster and say they can do acts in the circus, and that ShBeep is part unicorn and is a sheepcorn. Pop gets into a clown outfit, and ShBeep is taken into the big top. Soon it is apparent ShBeep can’t do any tricks, isn’t a sheepcorn, and that ShBeep has lots of fleas that are spreading through the circus. Everyone gets mad and ShBeep and Pop have to run away, getting lost in the woods. Will they find their way home?

T. E. Antonino has written a very unique chapter book. First, the main character Pop is in fourth grade, but she acts in many ways more like someone much younger. Second, chapter books are usually designed for kids five to six years old, but much of the language doesn’t seem age-appropriate, and some of the messages in the book (such as a young girl being free to go off on such adventures without parental supervision or the idea of lying to get into the circus) seem inappropriate for readers of chapter books. While the book shows a good deal of imagination and fantasy, it would be hard for these reasons to recommend it for young readers.