All the toes and paws for “Sparky!” are for the illustrations, which are lovely. The plot and characters were unappealing, except for the sloth (whom I wanted to tear off the page and set free). The mother in the book tells her daughter, “You can have any pet you want as long as it doesn’t need to be walked or bathed or fed,” which pretty much set the tone. First, I’d rather parents break news properly (“you can’t have a pet”) and, second, sloths should never be pets—that the daughter chooses one, rubs me the wrong way. I wish the author had rewritten the story, using the great illustrations, in some more palatable way.