Young Hippo: The Petsitter's Club Winter Special: The Christmas Kitten Tessa Krailing List Price: £3.99 Paperback - 160 pages (19 November, 1999) Scholastic Children's Books; ISBN: 0439012015 It's nearly Christmas and the Petsitter's Club - Sam, Jovan, Matthew and Katie - have their hands full with a difficult donkey, a sick cockroach, a dog that's too boring for words... and a gorgeous baby kitten. Gary, Sam's next door neighbour, has bought him for his girlfriend - and has asked Sam to look after him to keep him a surprise. The only problem is, Sam can't bear to let him go. Meanwhile, Jovan's been conned into taking charge of the donkey in the school Christmas play, Matthew is simply bored taking old Mrs Wimpole's dog for his daily walk, and Katie's cockroach is off his food... Tessa Krailing juggles these different plotlines neatly. There are no huge adventures to be found here, but the dilemmas the characters find themselves in are realistic enough, and sympathetically enough described, to hold the readers' attention. I was also pleased to see the amount of care that the author took to reinforce the concept of good pet ownership - that it isn't a good idea to give a kitten as a Christmas present, that not all situations are adequate for all kinds of pets even when the owner is well intentioned, and so on. My only quibble is that the ending (already obvious enough to an adult, though probably not to most children) is given away by a little bit of inept plotting right - a bit more thought would have maintained the tension better. Return to index