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The first book in the series about everyone's favorite classroom pet! You can learn a lot about life by observing another species. That’s what Humphrey was told when he was first brought to Room 26. And boy, is it true! In addition to having FUN-FUN-FUN in class, each weekend this amazing hamster gets to sleep over with a different student, like Lower-Your-Voice-A.J. and Speak-Up-Sayeh. Soon Humphrey learns to read, write, and even shoot rubber bands (only in self-defense, of course). With lots of friends to help, adventures to enjoy, and a cage with a lock-that-doesn’t- lock, Humphrey's life is almost perfect. If only the teacher, Mrs. Brisbane, wasn’t out to get him! Boys and girls can't help falling in love with Humphrey! Kids will be eager to get their paws on all 12 books in the series! Be sure to look for Humphrey's Tiny Tales for younger readers.
The first book in the series about everyone's favorite classroom pet! You can learn a lot about life by observing another species. That’s what Humphrey was told when he was first brought to Room 26. And boy, is it true! In addition to having FUN-FUN-FUN in class, each weekend this amazing hamster gets to sleep over with a different student, like Lower-Your-Voice-A.J. and Speak-Up-Sayeh. Soon Humphrey learns to read, write, and even shoot rubber bands (only in self-defense, of course). With lots of friends to help, adventures to enjoy, and a cage with a lock-that-doesn’t- lock, Humphrey's life is almost perfect. If only the teacher, Mrs. Brisbane, wasn’t out to get him! Boys and girls can't help falling in love with Humphrey! Kids will be eager to get their paws on all 12 books in the series! Be sure to look for Humphrey's Tiny Tales for younger readers.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the bookChapter 1: The Return of Mrs. Brisbane
Today was the worst day of my life. Ms. Mac left Room 26 of Longfellow School. For good. And that's bad. Worse yet, Mrs. Brisbane came back. Until today, I didn't even know there was a Mrs. Brisbane. Lucky me. Now I want to know: What was Ms. Mac thinking? She must have known that soon she'd be leaving with out me. And that Mrs. Brisbane would come back to Room 26 and I'd be stuck with her. I still like-okay, love-Ms. Mac more than any human or hamster on earth, but what was she thinking? “You can learn a lot about yourself by taking care of another species,” she told me on the way home the day she got me. “You'll teach those kids a thing or two.” That’s what she was thinking. I don't think she was thinking very clearly. I'm never going to squeak to her again. Of course, I'll probably never see her again because she's GONE GONE-GONE-but if she comes back, I'm not even going to look at her.
(I know that last sentence doesn't make sense. It's hard to make sense when your heart is broken.) On the other hand, until Ms. Mac arrived, I was going nowhere down at Pet-O-Rama. My days were spent sitting around, looking at a bunch of furry things in cages just like mine. We were treated all right: regular meals, clean cages, music piped in all day. Over the music, Carl, the store clerk, would answer the phone: “Open nine to nine, seven days a week. Corner of Fifth and Alder, next to the Dairy Maid." Back then, I feared I'd never see Fifth and Alder, much less the Dairy Maid. Sometimes I'd see human eyes and noses (not always as clean as they should be) poking up against the glass. Nothing ever came of it. The children were excited to see me, but the parents usually had other ideas. “Oh, come see the fishes, Cornelia. So colorful and so much easier to take care of than a hamster," Mama might say. Or "No, no, Norbert. They have the cutest little pup pies over here. After all, a dog is a boy's best friend." So there we were: hamsters, gerbils, mice and guinea pigs-not nearly as popular as the fish, cats or dogs. I suspected that I'd be spinning my wheel at Pet-O-Rama forever. But once Ms. Mac carried me out the door a short six weeks ago, my life changed FAST-FAST-FAST. I saw Fifth! I saw Alder! I saw the Dairy Maid with the statue of a cow in an apron outside! I was dozing when she first came to Pet-0-Rama, as I do during the day because hamsters are more active at night. “Hello." A warm voice awakened me. When I opened my eyes, I saw a mass of bouncy black curls. A big, happy smile. Huge dark eyes. She smelled of apples. It was love at first sight. “Aren't you the bright-eyed one?" she asked. “And might I return the compliment?" I replied. Of course, it came out “Squeak-squeak-squeak," as usual. Ms. Mac opened up her purse with the big pink and blue flowers on it. “I’ll take him," she told Carl. “He's obviously the most intelligent and handsome hamster you have." Carl grunted. Then Ms. Mac picked out a respectable cage-okay, not the three-story pagoda I'd had my eye on-but a nice cage. And soon, amid squeals of encouragement from my friends in the Small Pet Department, from the teeniest white mouse to the lumbering chinchilla, I left Pet-0-Rama with high hopes. We sped down the street in Ms. Mac's bright yellow car! (She called it a Bug, but I could see it was really a car.) She carried my cage up the stairs to her apartment! We ate apples! We watched TV! She let me run around outside my cage! She gave me my very own name:...
Reviews-
January 19, 2004 "You can learn a lot if you stop spinning and start listening." Such is the deep moral for this breezy, well-crafted first novel, narrated by a hamster purchased by a substitute teacher for a middle-school classroom. Humphrey's heart feels broken when the substitute's stint is up ("I'm never going to squeak to her again," he laments)—and it doesn't help that the regular teacher hates "rodents." But the class parents and the Most Important Person at Longfellow School (the principal) hatch a plan: a different student will take Humphrey home each weekend. "It's a wonderful way to teach the kids responsibility," enthuses one mother, but Humphrey has his own ideas, believing it is up to him to help solve "his" students' problems. This cheerful set-up leads to a succession of sweet-natured encounters. For example, a stay with "Speak-Up-Sayeh" prompts the shy girl, who worries that others will laugh at her accent, to get her family to finally attempt some English ("No wonder Sayeh got 100% on all her vocabulary tests," says Humphrey with comic naïveté when he hears them speaking a foreign language. "She and her family knew a lot more words than I did"). Humphrey's matter-of-fact, table-level view of the world is alternately silly and profound, and Birney (Tyrannosaurus Tex ) captures his unique blend of innocence and earnestness from the start. Given the perky protagonist and chipper delivery, middle-grade readers are sure to savor this classroom caper. Ages 7-up.
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Penguin Young Readers Group
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