The Stray

by Molly Ruttan, Molly Ruttan (Illustrator)

Overview

Adopting an extraterrestrial leads to hilariously mixed results!

When a family goes for a stroll one morning and encounters an adorable little creature with no collar or tag (who just happens to be sitting in the wreckage of an unidentified crash-landed object), they happily adopt the lovable stray. They name him Grub and set about training him, but that works surprisingly . . . poorly. Taking him for a walk is an unexpected adventure, too. As hard as they try to make Grub feel at home, it's just not working. Could he already have a family of his own? Maybe he isn't really a stray, after all—just lost. But how on earth will they be able to find his family when he seems to come from somewhere . . . out of this world?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525514466
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	05/19/2020
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Molly Ruttan (mollyruttan.com) illustrated I Am a Thief (by Abigail Rayner), and The Stray is the first book she has both written and illustrated. She grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, earned a BFA in graphic design from the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, and established a career as a graphic designer and illustrator in Los Angeles. She is married to her childhood friend and music producer, Gabriel Moffat. In addition to illustrating, drawing, painting, and writing, and parenting three daughters, Molly works part-time as a freelance graphic designer; plays drums and sings in the eclectic-folk rock band New Garden; creates artwork for, records, and performs as a backup singer and percussionist in the progressive art rock band Phideaux (bloodfish.com); and is a member of the Silverlake Conservatory of Music's adult choir Silverlake Singers.

Editorial Reviews

03/23/2020

A family encounters a stray on their walk; since he has neither a collar nor a tag, they take him home. What the narrator never mentions—but readers can instantly see—is that the stray is a pet-size alien whose spaceship has crashed to earth. Grub, as the family names him, seems comfy in his new home, taking a shine to the toaster and unleashing gravity-suspending powers: soon, the kids are flying around the living room, and a neighbor’s wading pool is turned into a multistory waterslide. But Grub grows homesick, and while his adoptive family imagines their new life together (Dad pictures the alien hanging his head out his truck window, just like a dog), they do the right thing: one of their “FOUND” signs reaches the mother ship, and Grub is spirited away. Ruttan (I Am a Thief!) ends her solo debut on an abrupt note (“Maybe we’ll see him again sometime!”), but her digitally enhanced charcoal and pastel drawings have heightened textures and an inner radiance that infuse the everyday settings with a lovely fairy tale quality. One can almost believe that extraterrestrial magic really can happen in the most ordinary of places. Ages 3–7. Agent: Rachel Orr, Prospect Agency. (May)

Publishers Weekly

This charming tale of a family’s encounter with an amiable alien is really two parallel narratives, one told in the text and the other in the illustrations. The simple, straightforward text describes a family’s relatively ordinary experience of finding a stray and adopting it as a pet. . . . The illustrations, however, depict a more unusual story. . . . Vibrant lime-green beams radiate from Grub’s whiskers and surround objects as they float across the pages—a signal to readers that something truly alien is afoot. Smart page-turns and high-impact double-page spreads enhance the already clever dual narratives of a unique lost-pet story.”—The Horn Book

“What the narrator never mentions—but readers can instantly see—is that the stray is a pet-size alien whose spaceship has crashed to earth. . . . [Ruttan’s] digitally enhanced charcoal and pastel drawings have heightened textures and an inner radiance that infuse the everyday settings with a lovely fairy tale quality. One can almost believe that extraterrestrial magic really can happen in the most ordinary of places.”—Publishers Weekly

“Many of the narrative details are cleverly embedded in the artwork: while the text alone reads as though the family has simply found a stray dog or cat, the illustrations clearly depict Grub as a small alien creature with stalk eyes and pointy teeth who emerges from a crashed spaceship and levitates objects in the family's house and neighborhood. Fun and layered, this is an appealing story for family bedtime reads.”—Booklist

From the Publisher

04/24/2020

PreS-Gr 2—When a family finds a stray creature without a collar or tag, things take an unexpected turn. They bring the dog-like creature home and name him Grub. Grub is terrible at following commands like "sit" and "stay" and he's not housebroken, but they try to acclimate him into their family. Grub also seems very sad, and they wonder if he has a family somewhere. The family distributes "found" posters, hoping that Grub can be reunited with his owners. Though the text tells a story of a stray animal being lost and found, the illustrations, with irony and humor, tell a slightly different tale. Grub is dog-like, but a little extraterrestrial, and the family finds him at a spaceship crash site. He also has the ability to make all the house fixtures and appliances float in the air. Ruttan's digital, charcoal, and pastel illustrations depict a cute and rounded creature who is full of emotion. VERDICT This is an appealing story to read aloud, and will be sure to delight animal lovers.—Danielle Jones, Multnomah County Library, OR

School Library Journal

2020-01-12
Challenges both unique and familiar await a family that takes in a (literally) otherworldly stray.

For her first solo outing, Ruttan unspools a narrative that could apply to any terrestrial animal: "He didn't have a collar, and he didn't have a tag…so we brought him home." She pairs it with sprightly views of a human family laying out bowls and bedding on the kitchen floor for Grub," a doglike (if stalk-eyed) creature pulled from a crashed flying saucer. At first Grub exuberantly emits anti-gravity waves that create glorious chaos ("He wasn't even housebroken"), but when, rather than settle in, he turns mopey, the family puts out "Found" posters. Soon a larger saucer swoops down to beam him back aboard. "We were sad Grub had to leave, but it felt good to know he was happy and was back with his family." His rescuers are never seen aside from similar eyes on stalks viewed through windows. Read one way this makes a droll and cozy tale…but if seen as a riff on E.T. ("Grub" evidently piloted his own saucer), it's discomfiting to see a stranded, sapient stranger treated as a pet, kitted with a cute name, given a bone to chew, and leashed for a walk outside. Subtle differences in the features and skin color of the human family's two parents hint that they might be an interracial couple, though that too is left ambiguous.

A buoyant authorial debut spoiled by some unexamined assumptions. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews