About This Book:
When Dot feels nervous at her new school, she comes up with a clever plan using her pet tortoise, Monty, to make friends.
It’s Dot’s first day at a new school, and she is very nervous! She sits by herself at lunchtime, and at recess, she reads a book instead of playing with the other children. When the teacher asks the class if anyone has a pet, Dot tells everyone that she has a tortosaurus! Dot’s tortosaurus (who’s really her pet tortoise, Monty, wearing a costume) is a hit–everyone at school wants to take pictures with him. But soon, all the attention gets to be too much–and Dot finds that everyone at school is more interested in Monty than in being her friend. Will she ever make a friend?
*Review Contributed By Rachel Feeck, Staff Reviewer*
Trouble making friends? Try a pet tortoise
Dot is a little shy and has trouble making friends at school. When her class is talking about pets, she seizes the opportunity to tell everyone she has a pet tortoise – erm, wait, make that a tortosaurus! He’s super cool, and definitely not just her tortoise Monty dressed as a dinosaur. But as the celebrity pressure grows, Dot learns that she and Monty can make friends just being themselves.
This is a super cute story about starting school or moving to a new place and having to make new friends. It’s also very relatable how Dot is sensitive to offhand comments by her classmates, and that pushes her to think it’s not enough to have a tortoise and that she has to think of something extraordinary for people to like her. But in the end, all’s well that ends well, and Dot apologizes to Monty and makes friends because of something very real, aka a love for tortoises.
