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Reading and Pet Intelligence

Do you want your pets to be intellectuals? Do you wish your pets were more well-read? Have you been eyeing the ULTIMATE GENIUS pets of your friends and wishing your pets could be the same? Well, now they can! This guide will give you a rundown of all the methods commonly used to increase your pet's intelligence. That's right, we're here with the solution for how to make your pet smarter! (And if you want to see how bright—or not—they already are, you can find that on their pet lookup or at the Quick Reference page.)

Reading Books to Pets

The most well-known, well-discussed, and simple way to increase your pet's intelligence is by reading to them. This raises your pet's intelligence level points; each book is worth 1-2 points (this is completely random). Here's how it works:

Step 1: Buy a book. This can be done at the Magical Bookshop in Neopia Central, as well as many other bookshops around Neopia. Here's a handy list of them, right here on JN! You can also earn books from dailies and site events, as well as purchase them from other players.

Step 2: Go to your inventory and click on the book you wish to read. In the drop-down menu, select the pet you wish to read the book to and click submit. Your pet will say something to you about the book, then it will vanish in a puff of smoke of a random colour and your pet's intelligence level will increase. The colour of the smoke it poofs into has no meaning or significance. It's just a cute bit of imagery for you!

[PET NAME] says '[PHRASE]'

[ITEM NAME] vanishes in a puff of [colour] smoke!

You can only read each book to a Neopet once. If you try to read one more than once, they will respond with the below quote. The book will remain in your inventory and your Neopet will not receive an increase in intelligence.

[PET NAME] says 'I have read that book already!'

If you have the Read to a Pet daily task active from Quest Log, reading an already-read book will function the same as above but will say the following:

[PET NAME] says 'I have read that book already!'

[PET NAME] looks fondly at the book and decides to flip through a few pages before putting it back down.

Loyal User Perks

Once your account matures to 24 months or older, you unlock the loyal user perk of a possibility to keep a book after reading it. When reading a book to a pet on an aged account, there is a small chance that the book will not puff into smoke, and it will remain in your inventory after reading. It will still register that your pet has read it and it will count towards any applicable book awards. You can then choose to read the book to a second pet, sell it, give it to a friend, or whatever you want.

Book Smarts Boon

Certain factions give the opportunity of activating the Book Smarts boon if you side with them and they emerge victorious from the Battleground of the Obelisk. When activated, reading a book to your pet will cause it to gain two or four intelligence points instead of the standard one point increase.

Books With Extra Effects

A handful of books have extra effects to be aware of! These effects are in addition to the standard intelligence boost.

For info on how to cure these diseases, check out our diseases and cures guide.

Book Awards

There are two awards that you can win by reading to your pet: the Neopian Book Award and the Booktastic Book Award. The trophies for each of these awards are given to those Neopian citizens who have read the largest number of books and Booktastic Books, respectively. The Neopian Book Award covers all books not sold by the bookshop on Kreludor. The Booktastic Book Award covers only books sold by the Booktastic Books shop on Neopia's moon.

In both cases, you'll receive an "honorary member" award if your pet is anywhere on the high score table (top 200 pets) at trophy award time. Gold, silver, and bronze are awarded as usual. Note that these high scores tables never reset since they are lifetime achievements and not games.

You can update your position on the high scores simply by visiting your pet's "books read" page; if you are eligible for a trophy, it will be awarded at that instant. Your position on the high scores does not update automatically with each book you read; you must visit the "books read" page.

Unlike the Gourmet Club, even if a book retires, it will still count towards these book clubs as long as it remains readable to your Neopet.

One day...oh glorious day!

These trophies are pet trophies. That means that they will show up not on your lookup, but on your pet's lookup. If you're going for one of these trophies, we have some handy checklist tools here on JN for you to use:

Book Checklist Tool »

Booktastic Book Checklist Tool »

Simply head over to the Quick Ref page and click the link that is your pet's intelligence value. Copy-paste the source code of the resulting page into the box given, and the tool will output a lovely checklist for you sorted however you like!

Refusing to Read a Book

Since March 14, 2024, pets will no longer find any books boring! There are no limitations on which pets can read which books.

Prior to this, sometimes your Neopet would refuse to read a book, saying something like "That is like such a boring book!" This happened when the number of characters in your pet's name matches a formula dictating a certain number of characters in the book's title. The formulas are as follows:

(p + 1) * 2 = x
(p + 1) * 2 + 1 = x

In the equations above, p is the number of character's in your pet's name, and x is the number of characters in a book's name that your pet will find boring.

Here's an example: let's say my pet's name is Slothy_Minion. That name has 13 characters in its name. If you plug 13 into the equations above, you'll get: (13 + 1) * 2 = 28 and (13 + 1) * 2 + 1 = 29. If any books had 28 or 29 characters in its name, your pet would have found it boring.

For items released prior to early 2015, it was possible to sidestep this by changing your site to a different language where the translated name of the book had a different number of characters.

Levels of Intelligence

For every book you read, or action you take to increase your pet's Intelligence, their number of points will go up. However, there are designated "levels" of intelligence that your pet can be at.

In terms of points accrued, the levels are:

Your pet's specific level number will not be displayed until they are at least a super genius at level 45.

Only adopted Grundos, hatched Draiks, Krawks transformed from Petpets, and Varwolves from the Scary Cave start at intelligence level 0 and can have the Dim Witted and Dull levels; all other Neopets start at 10.

In terms of books read, the levels are estimated to be:

In order to bring a Grundo's, hatched Draik's, or petpet-transformed Krawk's intelligence level up, they will need to read approximately 5 additional books than the above.

Uses for Intelligence

As of right now, there are few uses of intelligence in Neopia. However, a couple Battledome weapons require a certain threshold of intelligence in order to work, which you can read more about in our Battlepedia.

For a full list of Battledome items whose properties change depending on either your pet's intelligence or the opponent's intelligence, see the advanced search in the Battlepedia.

Other Ways to Change Pet Intelligence

There are several other ways to affect your pet's intelligence other than reading books.

Dailies

The following dailies can award (or deduct!) intelligence points:

• Coltzan's Shrine: There is a possibility when visiting the Shrine that King Coltzan will raise your pet's intelligence.
• Wheel of Knowledge: Landing on space 8 of the Wheel of Knowledge will increase your active pet's intelligence. Landing on space 3 can increase or decrease your active pet's intelligence.
• TDMBGPOP: There is a chance that the The Discarded Magical Blue Grundo Plushie of Prosperity will increase your pet's intelligence.
• Coincidence quests: Has a chance of increasing your active pet's intelligence by 1-3 or 8-10 points, though also a chance of decreasing by 1-3 points.
• Faerie Crossword: Completing it quickly can increase your pet's intelligence.

Games

You have about a 1 in 10 chance of gaining an extra point or two each time you win a game of Cliffhanger.

Items

The following items will also affect your pet's intelligence if used:

This page was written by Zelda and last updated on January 22, 2026.