Giveaway: A Perfect Pet for Peyton--5 Love Languages for Kids

A Perfect Pet for Peyton, written by Rick Osborne and Gary Chapman is a children’s picture book based upon Chapman’s theory of love language—a “primary way of expressing and interpreting love.”  The storyline is about twins, Peyton and Penny, who go on a birthday adventure with their friends to Mr. Chapman’s Perfect Pet Pal Emporium to have a party and get perfect pet pals.  As the children travel through the Pet Pal Emporium, each child demonstrates one of the five love languages.  Mr. Chapman, their guide, goes on to explain that people give and receive love in five different ways that he refers to as the Five Love Languages.  Then each child is matched up with a pet that matches their love language.  Included at the end of the book is the Five Love Languages Quiz for Kids.

The book has fun and held my girl’s (ages 5 and 8) interest.  The illustrations were colorful and engaging.  At 64 pages, the book is a bit long for the younger reader or someone with a limited attention span.  I think this book has value in that it teaches children that people like to love and love differently and it is important to try to love people in every way. 

However, as a counselor, I think this book could be much better on a few points.  The first is that the book uses absolutes, such as “we all need to love people in every way.”  This rubs me the wrong way because if one believes they “need” to love people in every way and they fall short of doing this, they may feel guilty and frustrated.  In my opinion, this is an example of stinking thinking that I don’t want to teach my children.  I think this could have been better, simply by stating, It is important to make an effort to love people in all ways instead of placing an irrational demand by using the word need.

I also think the quiz at the end was not very helpful in determining your child’s love language, if you didn’t already know.  The questions asked could all be easily answered yes by many children, making it difficult to really determine which one is your child’s primary love language.  Even if you can figure it out, I think the book still stops short of the mark by not giving you suggestions on how to respond to the type of love language your child speaks.  I think if you were already familiar with Dr. Chapman’s books on the Five Love Languages, the determination of your child’s love language might be clearer.

That being said, I do think that readers can learn that people are all different and that people love and give love differently.  I just wish it that it would have had an easier quiz for children to determine what their love language is and a little blurb about what that means exactly.  I think children would benefit from having more self-awareness of their own language of love.  I was able to help my children see what their language of love is and point out to them that other people give and like to receive love in different ways, but I am not sure that all readers would know to reinforce this message.  It would have been nice if the book had.

This book may be purchased at Amazon.com or you can enter the giveaway below to win your own copy.

Disclosure:  I received a copy of this book to facilitate this review.  The vendor has also offered a copy for a prize.

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