A review by aengh
Once Upon a Goat by Dan Richards

3.0

I thought this was a really funny book, but then again, I spent my adolescence with a mother who kept talking about how badly she wanted a goat. With that said, I think that it unintentionally represents a lot of what needs to change with the publishing industry. If you've done your research on kid lit, you know that there are more books about white people and animals than there are about people of any other ethnicity (even combine them, the numbers are pretty bad). At that, this book is about a wealthy, white, heteronormative couple (dude, even the queen wears pink and the king wears blue) who want to have a baby. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that narrative, but I don't think I'm asking too much to ask that the king, queen, or fairy godmother were a POC, and I find it hard to get past that.

However, I'm also a dog mom. And I know how 'let's let it sleep in the bed just for one night' goes and then gets out of hand.

Highly recommend this book if you can set aside the part of you that craves representation in books.