Memoirs of a Hamster

by Devin Scillian, Tim Bowers (Illustrator), Adam Weber (Narrated by)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781585368310
Publisher:	Sleeping Bear Press
Publication date:	05/01/2013
Series:	Memoirs
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	72,903
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.20(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	AD540L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 9 Years

About the Author

Devin Scillian is an award-winning author, broadcast journalist, and musician. He presently anchors the news for WDIV-TV in Detroit. He has traveled the world covering news stories from Sydney to Siberia. His school presentations have inspired countless children to think of themselves as not only readers, but writers as well.
In addition to Memoirs of a Goldfish, Memoirs of a Hamster, Memoirs of an Elf, and Memoirs of a Parrot, Devin is also the author of numerous books for Sleeping Bear Press including the national bestseller A is for America: An American Alphabet. Devin lives in Michigan with his family. Find out more about Devin at www.devinscillian.com.

Even at a young age, Tim Bowers's artwork reflected a strong sense of humor and an interest in animals. Prior to illustrating children's books, Tim worked as an artist for Hallmark Cards, where he helped launch the popular Shoebox Greetings card line. His first children's book, The Toy Circus, was published in 1986. He now has illustrated more than 25 children's books and garnered various awards including the Chicago Public Library's "Best of the Best" list and several Junior Library Guild selections. Tim's artwork has been included in the Society of Illustrators Annual Art Exhibition and the S.I. Humor Exhibition, as well as featured in children's magazines, used on a wide variety of products, and appeared on hundreds of greeting cards. Original paintings from several books are in private and institutional collections across the country. Tim lives with his family in Granville, Ohio, and travels to schools and libraries to share his work with students.

Editorial Reviews

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

School Library Journal

A scary foray into the wide (indoor) world cures a hamster of any yen for adventure in this variation on the creators' Memoirs of a Goldfish (2010). Seymour the hamster is quite comfy in his pen, thank you--until lured into engineering an ingenious escape by Pearl the cat's teasing promises of a staircase made of sunflower seeds and a sunroom filled with yogurt drops. But Pearl turns out to be a "big, fat liar," and Seymour's adventure turns into a frantic flight not only from her, but also from Buck the dog and, most frightening of all, a roaring monster called a "Hoover." The arrangement of Seymour's chatty exposition into 14 "Nights" is a clear contrivance--he supposedly spends Nights 11, 12 and part of 13 cowering under the sofa before the watchful Pearl falls asleep and he can make a break--but the pacing is suitably breathless. His hamster-ish outlook is effectively conveyed in his narrative and in Bowers' low-angle cartoon views of a chubby-cheeked, bright-eyed pet who, though once susceptible to temptation, clearly enjoys the familiar comforts of wheel and water bottle--to which he is returned following a last-second rescue by his human yogurt-drop supplier, Little Girl. "Question: Who's the luckiest hamster in the world? Answer: ME!" Readers will probably agree. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews