The great hamster massacre

Review by Booklist Review

Twelve-year-old Anna, her younger brother, Tom, and Anna's best friend, Suzanne, are drawn into the mystery of the great hamster massacre. Following the passing of their beloved Nana and after years of insisting they will never have hamsters, their mother relents and buys two male Russian Dwarf hamsters. Weeks later, when one of the hamster's girth expands, they realize they have a female hamster that is about to birth babies. Unfortunately, Anna soon discovers the babies have been killed, one of the adult hamsters is missing, and the other is badly wounded. The young detectives are on the case to determine what happened. This British import is an interesting mix of British humor with serious issues interspersed. Whimsical, cartoonish pen-and-ink illustrations accompany the story and help lighten the seriousness. Beware that scenes of the massacre might startle more sensitive children. This is the first in a series that will appeal to fans of Roald Dahl and Dick King-Smith.--Sawyer, Lind. Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 3-4-This British import addresses a truly dreadful phenomenon that many young pet owners are nonetheless familiar with: the death-by-parent of a litter of newborn hamsters. Although nine-year-old Anna desperately wants a hamster, her mother refuses. However, after a death in the family, she relents, and Anna and her brother, Tom, become the owners of what they believe to be two female hamsters. After Hamster Number One surprises the family by giving birth to eight babies, Anna is shocked to visit the cage in the morning to find the babies dead and Hamster Number Two missing. Instead of admitting the obvious, she decides to find the killer and bring him or her to justice. With the help of Tom, her friend Suzanne, and the advice of a neighbor "who used to be in the police," Anna questions her friends, family, and neighbors about their whereabouts and motives regarding the creatures. What follows is an interesting take on how children deal with grief and shock, with a refreshing lack of condescension toward Anna, and by extension, young readers. Although the case is never conclusively solved, most readers won't mind. Anna's voice is engaging, and portrayals of various pets and neighbors (with accompanying hand-drawn side notes and cartoons) will entertain more than the mystery itself. One warning: some children may have a hard time with this book, which chronicles up to 15 pet deaths, including the hamsters. With that in mind, give this dark comedy to reluctant readers, mystery lovers, and fans of narrator-illustrated fare like Jeff Kinney's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books or Tom Angleberger's The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (2010, both Abrams).-Heather Talty, formerly at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, New York City (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Horn Book Review

This quirky British import follows Anna's quest to get a pet and the disastrous results of her actions. With the help of her friend Suzanne and her little brother Tom, Anna tries to solve the mystery of one dead hamster and one who's gone AWOL; the story ends before the culprit is unmasked. Anna's candid, humorous voice pairs well with Shaw's doodle-ish black-and-white illustrations. (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Fans of Ivy and Bean will enjoy meeting their counterparts across the Pond: best friends and next-door neighbors Anna and Suzanne. Together, the girls sow happy chaos in their English village, along with Anna's little brother, Tom, Joe-down-the-street and assorted human and animal enablers. Anna, the narrator, has her heart set on a new pet. Their current one, New Cat, acquired to replace the more accommodating Old Cat (victim of a sad mishap), is fierce and unfriendly (handlers are advised to wear gardening gloves). A successful wheedling campaign and coincidental sad family event produce results: two hamsters, both certified (wrongly) as female. Ere long, a blessed event ensues. Like life, novels unfold while the charactersAnna, in this caseare busy making plans, and Anna's fountain of ideas convincingly tracks the busy 9-year-old mind down to the smallest, delightful detail. Inspired use of simple words, straightforward syntax and effective repetition make this a top pick for slow or reluctant readers. The art is clever, but the cartoonish style with limited affect might mislead readers expecting a Captain Underpants experience. Be warned: Under the plot's frothy surface lie serious depths (hint: Look at the title). An auspicious debut, with a sequel (The Great Rabbit Rescue) waiting in the wings.(Fiction. 8-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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CHAPTER 1 What a Massacre Is This is a story about me, and Tom, and our Investigation into the Hamster Massacre. I'm supposed to be writing my What-I-Did-On-My-Summer-Vacation story for school, but I'm going to write this story first because you should always write a Real Investigation up straight away. That's what my friend Suzanne says. And Suzanne knows everything about Real Investigations. Mom said she didn't think my teacher would like the story of my real summer vacation, and how the Hamster Massacre happened. She said, "Anna (that's my name), some nice things must have happened this summer and if you can't remember any, you can make some nice things up, and put them in your vacation report instead." Mom doesn't think it matters if my Vacation Report isn't exactly true, but Graham Roberts got in trouble last year when he put that he spent the whole vacation in the dog bed. His dog had died, so maybe he did stay in the dog bed all vacation, but Mrs. Peters said he must have come out to eat and go to the bathroom and things like that, and Joe-down-the-street told Tom he saw Graham at Scouts. And you can't be in a dog bed there . Tom is my little brother. I've got another brother too, and a sister, but they're older than me and Tom and they don't really care about hamsters much, so they're not in this story. Tom is four years younger than me, except for a little while every year after he has his birthday, and before I have mine, when he is only three years younger. But most of the time he's four years younger, so it's best to say that. Anyway, me and Tom are not supposed to talk about the hamsters and what happened to them anymore because it's best to try to forget about it all, and stop exaggerating, and making it worse than it actually was, and all that. But we couldn't do that anyway because massacres can't really get any worse than they are. That is the point of them. This is what it says about massacres in my dictionary.… massacre [ mass-a-ker ] noun a general slaughter of persons or animals: "the massacre of millions during the war" The dictionary in Suzanne's house said you could have another kind of massacre. It said … massacre [ mass-a-ker ] informal a bad defeat, especially in sports: "England was massacred 5-0 by France in the semifinal" But the Hamster Massacre was not that kind of massacre. The Hamster Massacre was definitely a formal kind of massacre. I will keep the story of the Hamster Massacre in the shed with the worms and the wasp trap and the pictures that we traced from Joe-down-the-street's Mom's book. Me and Suzanne have made a lock for the shed door, and we've got a new password. We are the only ones allowed in the shed, except when we let Tom in, but he gets bored when we are making the locks and deciding on the passwords and stuff, and he is too little for the pictures from Joe's Mom's book, so most of the time, when we go in the shed, Tom goes in the house and has a cookie. © 2010 Katic Davics Excerpted from The Great Hamster Massacre by Katie Davies All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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