Memoirs Of A Hamster

Memoirs Of A Hamster

Night 1 / My life is perfect. / I have a bowl full of seeds, a cozy pile of wood shavings, and room to run. / I'm never leaving here. / Question: Who's the luckiest hamster in the world? / Answer: ME! Seymour the hamster has the perfect life. He has a spacious cage, a constant food supply, and a FuzzyBoy 360 exercise wheel that lets him run to his heart's content. Life could not be better. Or could it? When Pearl the cat tells Seymour of the goodies beyond the safe confines of his cage, he starts to think he's missing out. And out is the new in! It's only after Seymour is out of his cage that he begins to fully appreciate his safe and cozy home.From School Library JournalK-Gr 2-Seymour, a hamster, has the ideal life, according to his day-by-day memoir. He's got a bowl of seeds, a full water bottle, and a cozy bed of wood shavings. And it gets even better when the FuzzyBoy 360 exercise wheel arrives. Now Seymour's day is filled with activity and the delicious yogurt drops brought to him by Little Girl. He couldn't want for anything more, right? Wrong. When a wily cat starts talking about the wonders of the sunroom filled with yogurt drops, the gullible hamster escapes the cage to discover what he's missing. What he discovers is a dog, the cat, and an "enormous monster" called Hoover that is very dangerous to small rodents. Bowers's representational artwork captures the life of a hamster well, and the facial expressions of the animals will delight young readers. There's lots of white space and the text and pictures flow well, allowing readers to absorb the action. This title should hit the mark, especially in classrooms in which hamsters are in residence.-Sharon Grover, Hedberg Public Library, Janesville, WI?(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.From BooklistThe team that brought us Memoirs of a Goldfish (2010) reunites for another day-by-day diary of a pet whose life isn?t as boring as it first seems. ?This hamster has it going on,? proclaims the cute little rodent after boasting about his bowl of sunflower seeds, his water dispenser, and his FuzzyBoy 360 hamster wheel. All would be perfect if not for the temptation planted by the family cat. ?The staircase is made of sunflower seeds,? purrs the villain. ?And the sunroom is filled with yogurt drops.? Eager to visit this utopia, the hamster busts out-only to be trapped behind the sofa by the cat and chased by the dreaded ?Hoover.? It?s a classic story of the grass is greener, concluding, of course, with the hamster very satisfied to be back in his cage, even if it means suffering through smooches on the nose from the little girl. Scillian?s low-key sense of humor is perfect for our daffy protagonist, while Bowers? art has a timeless, adorable appeal. Life is hard off the hamster wheel, you know? Grades K-2. --Daniel KrausReviewKirkus Starred Review A tortoise reflects on a year in its life. Oliver is an 80-year-old tortoise and lives in a sunny, flowery, tropical-looking landscape with his pet white human, Ike, who s also 80. The two are dear friends, and Oliver reflects on how he and Ike love each other and how they have their comfortable daily routines ("Oliver, fetch" says Ike, and they both laugh). But one day Ike is gone, and Oliver, saddened, makes the trek (10 gardens away) to talk with his 137-year-old mother. This gentle, poignant, and humorous story presents the themes of friendship, loss, and appreciation of life s moments from refreshingly different perspectives: narratively from Oliver s point of view and visually from the low vantage afforded by Oliver s stature. Both work wonderfully. The story is both heart-rending and uplifting as Oliver leads readers on a tortoise-speed journey of his quiet moments in the garden and his graceful acceptance of change. It s also terribly funny in its memoir aspect ("A banana for dinner") and in the speed (or lac