BEWARE OF THE HAMSTER! Ferocious Fluffity by Erica Perl

Mr. Drake's class has a new pet.She's tiny and cute; she looks so sweet! They love her fluff and her neat little feet. But Mr. Drake has an important pet point to make.

"Look, don't touch!
She's too little. It's too much!

Though the children nodded YES,
Did they mean it? Take a guess.

The kids in Room 2-D all secretly plan to get their hands on Fluffity at the first opportunity.

And then fate steps in. Mr. Drake sleeps late. The unsupervised class shouts HOORAY! Today is the day for Fluffity's first hands-on experience!

No one's sure who held her first.
Things got bad. Then things got worse.

She was tiny, she was cute.
She was also quite a brute!

Bert is the first to be bit, but when he yells, (Yee-OUCH!), another student catches Fluffity and gets chomped. The hamster goes from hand to hand, with the same results, from Zonder and Zuna to both Kevin K and Kevin B. Fluffity takes it on the lam down the hall, with Nathan getting the worst of the capture effort.

She bit "Dathan" on his "dose."

She bit Perrie, Pam and Paul.
She bit them, bit them, bit them all.

As the kids from Room 2-D take refuge in the library from their mighty-bitey mite, Mr. Drake rushes in, just in time to get bit on the ankle. It's not exactly the sharing and shared experience he had in mind for their first classroom pet.

All's well at last, as Mr. D. calms Room 2-D and restores Fluffity to her hamster habitat, explaining that hamsters have to be handled tactically until they settle in and suggests letting their pet release some of her nervous energy on her exercise wheel before approaching her again. And then he surprises the class with their second classroom pet--Jake the Snake. The kids are thrilled, but Fluffity finds that she is NOT.

Lila Perl's Ferocious Fluffity: A Mighty Bite-y Class Pet (Abrams Books, 2016) features her funny couplets in this witty tale of their tiny terror, with notable children's artist Henry Cole taking over the visual storytelling with his usual hilarious illustrations, from the fearful Fluffity to the well-individualized kids in the class and the mega-cool Mr. Drake. Cole even manages to put in a plug for books and reading in the bulletin boards posted in the classroom, hall, and particularly the apropos BOOKS YOU CAN SINK YOUR TEETH INTO! in the library. A perfect cautionary tale for kids (and teachers) contemplating a new class pet!

Lila Perl and Henry Cole are the co-creators of the noted giggle-fest pair, Chicken Butt and Chicken Butt's Back! (See reviews here.)

Back to School! The Best Seat in the Second Grade by Katharine Kenah

SAM HAD THE BEST SEAT IN SECOND GRADE.

HE SAT IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM. HE DIDN'T SIT NEXT TO THE GLOBE. HE DIDN'T SIT NEXT TO THE DINOSAUR MODELS, OR THE PIONEER FORT.

HE SAT NEXT TO GEORGE WASHINGTON.

No, Sam's not sitting by the portrait of our first president. He's sitting next to the cage where George the hamster lives. This George Washington becomes Sam's favorite school subject. No matter what his teacher Mr. Hopper is talking about, Sam can work the class pet into the conversation.

"WHO KNOWS WHAT LAVA IS?" ASKS MR. HOPPER.

"IT POPS OUT OF VOLCANOES," SAYS SAM, "THE WAY GEORGE WASHINGTON POPS OUT OF HIS NEST."

The rest of the class snickers as time after time Sam brings George into every lesson. But what Sam really wants is to be named Hamster Helper for the week. He watches sadly as other kids get picked.

And then it's time for a field trip to the planetarium, and Sam just can't stand for George Washington to be left alone back at school. He places him gently deep in his coat pocket and sneaks him inside the museum. George gets a peep at the planetarium's stars and planets, gets his fur ruffled in the wind tunnel, climbs inside the Giant Seashell and goes along with Sam in the Bubble Blast. Sam carefully keeps George hidden until they get to the Animal Zone.

Sam and George are drawn to the huge Hamster Habitat, and George Washington gets so excited to see his cousins that he sneezes! BIG TIME! The whole class knows that sneeze, and suddenly Sam's secret stowaway is outed!

UH OH! Busted!

Will Sam be separated from his favorite class buddy?

Mr. Hopper takes action, but with empathy. Back in the classroom, he moves Sam's desk up front--right beside his desk where he can keep his eye on him.

But he moves George Washington's cage, too, right to the table right beside Sam's seat.

SAM HAD THE BEST SEAT IN SECOND GRADE.

Katharine Kenah's The Best Seat in Second Grade (I Can Read Level 2) (HarperCollins, 2015) in its new revised edition is back for beginning readers just moving up to short chapters and independent reader status. This back-to-school-themed Level Two book is illustrated ably by Abby Carter, whose artwork extends the narrative by picking up on Sam's expressions and body language as he sneaks his furry friend along on the field trip. As Kirkus Reviews says, "Carter's expressive watercolor illustrations help bring the kids in room 75 and their fury pet to life."

Move Over, King Kong! Tiny Hamster Is A Giant Monster by Joel Jensen

ONE CLOUDY DAY TINY HAMSTER WENT OUT TO FIND A BITE TO EAT.

TINY HAMSTER WAS ALWAYS HUNGRY, YOU SEE.

Tiny Hamster scurries through Big City Park looking for dropped munchies and happens upon a spilled can of Evil Green Goo.

Oh, No, Tiny Hamster! Don't eat that!

Ignoring the universal radiation danger symbol, Tiny scarfs up the slimy green mess. BURP!

But all is well until the darkening skies turn into a thunder storm.

Oh, No, Tiny Hamster. Get under cover before a lightning bolt....

KA-BOOM! KABOOM! (again!)

HE FELT HIMSELF INFLATE LIKE A BIG BALLOON THAT KEPT GETTING BIGGER--LIKE A BLIMP.

NO. A ZEPPELIN!

And that's not all. Tiny Hamster's claws grow big and sharp, his tiny tail trails long behind him, and spikes sprout from his back. He turns green. And he's still hungry--REALLY hungry. Tiny Hamster is a Giant Monster and he has the appetite to match. He rampages through the Big City, knocking down buildings, chomping up the subway cars on the El, and grazing on the trees (broccoli florets) in Big City Park. He scales a tall skyscraper, where he finds himself under attack from a flock of helicopters. Yum, flying snacks! Crunchy!

Joel Jensen and Joseph and Amy Matsushima's spinoff from their popular YouTube series, Tiny Hamster Is a Giant Monster (Simon and Schuster, 2015), riffs on the classic science fiction monster run amok, with a nod to King Kong, Godzilla and even Frankenstein's monster. The creators provide a artfully constructed and apparently edible Metropolis for their hamster to ravage in a spoof that will tickle older readers and even tots who have no experience with the whole metropolitan monster trope.

See Tiny Hamster rampage through the Big Apple here.

For more silly monster spoofery, don't miss Dav Pilkey's choice Dogzilla and Kat Kong.

Runnin' Wild: The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie by Chris Van Allsburg

HE'S SOOO CUTE!" SQUEALED THE PIGTAILED GIRL. THE HAMSTER HAD HEARD THESE WORDS BEFORE. HE'D ONCE SHARED HIS HOME WITH A DOZEN FRIENDS.

HE'D BEEN LEFT BEHIND BECAUSE WHENEVER A CHILD HAD PICKED HIM UP, HE'D SQUIRMED AND SCRATCHED.

TODAY HE DID NOT PUT UP A FIGHT. WHEREVER HIS FRIENDS HAD GONE, HE WANTED TO GO THERE, TOO.

But it's out of the frying pan and into the fire for this hamster. The ride home on the back of her bike, in the sun and breeze, is the best part. The girl names him Sweetie Pie and squeezes him too tight, but he cooperates. At least he's out of the cage.

But then Pigtails is distracted by her new laptop, and Sweetie Pie is resigned to overeating to pass the time. Suddenly he finds himself the subject of a sales pitch to a strange boy.

"KIND OF BIG, ISN'T HE?" HE GRUMBLES.

Again, the best part is the ride home, out where he can see the sky and sniff the outdoors. Unluckily, the boy already has a pet, a dog appropriately named Buster who knocks over his cage and slavers at the bars daily. Too anxious to eat, Sweetie Pie becomes skinny and mopey and soon finds himself gifted to a not-so sweet Cousin Sue, who confines him in her dollhouse, stuffed into a frilly pink dress. But Cousin Sue is not through with her ideas of hamster fun. She stuffs him inside a clear plastic exercise ball and rolls him down her sidewalk. Out of control, Sweetie Pie careens downhill, across a busy street, and finally rolls into a park, where he remains until some kids notice him the next day.

Fortune smiles and Sweetie Pie becomes a classroom pet. At least he's not lonely, and the job has one perk: his cage sits by the window where he can at least see the sky and trees. Sometimes a curious squirrel comes to sit on the outside sill and seems friendly. When the holidays come, a boy volunteers to keep him over the break, but when he stops off to toss a football with friends, he forgets Sweetie Pie and leaves him in his cage as the snow begins to fall.

After vacation, the boy sadly confesses to the class. The teacher tries to put a positive spin on the story.

"I'M SURE," SHE SAID, "A NICE BOY OR GIRL IS TAKING CARE OF HIM."

THE CHILDREN KNEW BETTER.

Does Sweetie Pie wind up as a frozen hamster popsicle? Or does he find a familiar rodent friend to ride to his rescue? In his forthcoming The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), two-time Caldecott medalist (for Jumanji and the classic The Polar Express) Chris Van Allsburg tells it like it is for cage pets. Sweetie Pie may fare better than the kids predict, and sharp readers may foresee Van Allsburg's nicely foreshadowed ending, a bitter-sweet conclusion that involves a steady diet of acorns, but readers will come away perhaps thinking twice about what it means to own and care for a small pet.

The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie is a switch from Van Allburg's familiar surreal style. Here his deceptively pleasant ink and pastel watercolor illustrations contrast pointedly with the indignities suffered by his little protagonist. Sweetie Pie's expressions tell all as the artist uses perspective shifts to portray the story from the point of view inside that cage as well as outside. This one is not your average cheery little lost-pet story, but like all of Van Allsburg's work, it is one that kids will likely remember well long after.

As Publishers Weekly wryly observes, "Thinking of getting a hamster? Read this first."