Memoirs of a Hamster

K-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