Piper Gets A New Home is a book about a puppy who takes a plane ride, meets a parrot, and learns that potty goes outside. That’s the short version, and it’s pretty much how Piper would tell it. She’s eight weeks old, she’s curious about everything, and she has a lot to say about her first days with a new family.
Piper Gets A New Home: The Adventures of Piper by Mariah Leal is the first of five books that follow one Bull Mastiff through her first year. Piper starts out in Michigan with her mom Maddy and her brothers and sisters. Her new family lives in New York, which is too far to drive. So Piper gets on a plane.
If you’ve ever brought home a puppy, you know the first week is chaos. This book walks through it with a sense of humor, and it never talks down to kids. It’s written for kids, but parents will pick up plenty too. Think of it as a first week with a new puppy, minus the mess on your carpet.
What Is the Book All About?
The story in Piper Gets A New Home follows Piper from the day she leaves Michigan to her first big outings in New York. Chapter one is the plane ride. Piper rides in a crate with a blanket and a teddy bear that smells like home, and she naps through most of the flight. Chapter two is the new house, which is full of animals. There’s Zaniah the Akita, Spirit the cat, Keira the African Grey parrot, and Phoebe the skink. After that come her first week, her first training lessons, and her first trips out to meet people and other dogs. Along the way, Piper gets her first car rides, her first walk up the front steps, and her first look at the pet store.
Search for Mariah Leal Author and you’ll find a lifelong dog person who has owned Dobermans, Afghan Hounds, an Akita, and a Great Dane. That’s the background behind Piper Gets A New Home, and it shows in how the book starts. Before Piper arrives, her mom researches breeds, because size, coat care, and personality all affect how you raise a dog.
What Can Readers Expect from the Book
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Video by ReadersMagnet | Radio Interview with Kate Delaney featuring Mariah Leal with ReadersMagnet.
Expect a gentle, funny read. Piper tells everything in first person, so you hear her confusion and her excitement as she goes. When her tummy feels funny on takeoff, she says so. When she meets a parrot that actually talks, her reaction is “Geez, I never knew a bird could talk like a person!”
Piper Gets A New Home also teaches as it goes. You’ll see how to set up a crate, why a blanket and toy from home help a puppy settle in, and when to take a puppy out to potty. Piper’s mom says it’s first thing in the morning, after eating, after playing, and after a nap. You’ll also see why a puppy with only one round of shots stays close to home and gets carried at the pet store.
There’s some silliness too. People at the pet store guess Piper is a Shar Pei or a pug. She sits in daddy’s seat in the car and asks, “don’t I look cool?” She also climbs on top of a picnic table to get the best view.
The tone stays upbeat. Piper is scared at bedtime, nervous about the stairs, and unsure about the plastic bags, but nothing in the book is frightening. Every worry gets solved by a patient person, and Piper bounces back by the next page.
What Sets the Book Apart
Plenty of puppy books are cute. Piper Gets A New Home is cute and useful. Piper compares her life to a kid’s life, so the lessons stick. Training classes are like kindergarten. Learning manners is something both puppies and children have to do. She puts it in one line, “Puppies are a lot like children.” Then she shows you what she means.
The other thing that sets it apart is safety. Piper explains dog body language in plain words. “Since dogs can’t talk, they communicate through body language.” When Remy growls at her for jumping, Piper gets the message and backs off. A kid who reads that learns what a growl means before ever meeting a nervous dog.
And there’s the way it shows the dog’s side of things. When Piper hesitates at some plastic bags, her mom doesn’t drag her over. She waits, touches a bag, and asks Piper if she wants to sniff it. Piper does, and as she says, “Nothing happened.” That’s a quiet lesson in patience for the grown-ups reading along.
It also has real photos. You see Piper as a wrinkly eight-week-old puppy, Zaniah in the grass, Spirit the cat settled into a basket, and Piper standing in a pet store cart. Kids will like knowing the animals in the story are real.
Piper Gets A New Home: The Adventures of Piper – Is It Worth Reading?
Image by Mariah Leal
Yes, especially if there’s a kid and a puppy in your future. Piper Gets A New Home is short enough to read in one sitting, and it works for bedtime or a classroom. It also makes a good gift for a family about to get a dog, since it shows what the first week really looks like.
The author wrote the series with a clear goal. She wants fewer dog bites involving kids and fewer dogs in shelters. She says about 80 percent of bites to children come from a dog they already know, like the family dog, a friend’s dog, or a relative’s. If you’d like more on that, the American Veterinary Medical Association has a page of dog bite prevention tips, and the ASPCA has advice on choosing and caring for a new dog. Piper Gets A New Home pairs well with both.
If you want a story that makes kids laugh while it teaches them how to treat a dog, this is a good one to start with. Pick up a copy of Piper Gets A New Home: The Adventures of Piper by Mariah Leal, read it with your kids tonight, and find out what Piper learns next. Across all five books, you’ll learn how to raise a well-trained, well-socialized dog, and your kids will learn how to stay safe around one. Piper has a lot more to figure out, and this is where it starts.
