Hello, Jasmine Warga! I’m sooooooo happy you’ve returned to Watch. Connect. Read. to share The Unlikely Tale of Chase and Finnegan’s gorgeous cover. I love Vivienne To’s cover illustration and Aurora Parlagreco’s cover design.
Scenario: You’re celebrating books and writing with 400 4th graders in Ohio. It is your first time booktalking The Unlikely Tale of Chase and Finnegan. What do you share with the students?
Finnegan has his own problems to sort through, and so does Chase, who has recently lost her mother. Their stories interweave and connect in a myriad of surprising ways. Together, they learn what it means to be friends—especially to be friends with someone different from you. Finnegan learns what it means to trust, and Chase learns what it means to have confidence, to represent your community, but also stay true to yourself. It’s a book about so many things that are important to me like overcoming anxiety and perfectionism (and the bad voice that sometimes takes over our brains!), finding home, and friends who feel like family. I was inspired to write the book after learning about the incredible cheetah programs at zoos across the country that really do pair dogs with cheetahs to socialize the cheetahs and bring down their anxiety-levels. (And since these readers are in Ohio, I would ask them if any of them could guess why I named the cheetah character Chase, and I bet a lot of them will know the answer. :D!)
Please finish the following sentence starters:
Cheetahs and dogs are very different, but they are both majestic, loving, and incredible creatures worthy of our care and attention. When you’re finished reading The Unlikely Tale of Chase and Finnegan, you can read some fun facts about both dogs and cheetahs that I have included in the back of the book!
John Schu, you should have asked me about the research I did for this book. It was so much fun learning about dogs and cheetahs, and how they perceive the world—which was important for me to understand in order to write from those perspectives. I even got to visit the wonderful cheetah ambassador program at the Cincinnati Zoo where I got to tour the facilities, see the cheetahs up close, and even meet some of the companion dogs! (I have some great pictures that I am looking forward to sharing on school visits!)
The Unlikely Tale of Chase & Finnegan releases on March 3, 2026. Pre-order a copy (or 10) today!