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The House of a Million Pets
Ann Hodgman's basement is home to three guinea pigs, a cage full of birds, a big gray rabbit, a prairie dog, a bulbul (look it up), two little rabbits, a hamster, and twenty-six pygmy mice. And that's just the basement.Would your parents ever let you have that many pets at once? If Ann Hodgman were your parents, she'd let you. Here is the true story of what it's like to live in her barnyard―er, house―with more animals than you'll be able to keep track of. Any kid (or adult) who has ever owned or wanted a pet will love these furry, feathered, slimy, and scaly stories. The House of a Million Pets is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published September 4, 2007
About the author
Ann Hodgman
82 books22 followersAnn Hodgman (born 1956) is an American author of more than forty children's books as well as several cookbooks and humor books and many magazine articles.
Ann was raised in Rochester, New York and graduated from Harvard College, where she was a staff member on the Harvard Lampoon and the Harvard Advocate. She was the food columnist for the magazines Spy and Eating Well. Her essay "No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch," about taste-testing various dog foods, was included in "Best American Essays." Hodgman is also known for her three cookbooks, Beat This!, Beat That! and One Bite Won't Kill You. She is the author of the 6-book vampire series My Babysitter is a Vampire and the nonfiction memoir "The House of a Million Pets."
Hodgman is married to author David Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and they have two children, Laura and John.
Ann was raised in Rochester, New York and graduated from Harvard College, where she was a staff member on the Harvard Lampoon and the Harvard Advocate. She was the food columnist for the magazines Spy and Eating Well. Her essay "No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch," about taste-testing various dog foods, was included in "Best American Essays." Hodgman is also known for her three cookbooks, Beat This!, Beat That! and One Bite Won't Kill You. She is the author of the 6-book vampire series My Babysitter is a Vampire and the nonfiction memoir "The House of a Million Pets."
Hodgman is married to author David Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and they have two children, Laura and John.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
June 1, 2008
Written for middle-grade readers, this autobiographical account of the many, many, manymany pets the author has had as an adult is probably even more hilarious when you read it as an adult, if only because you imagine what it would be like to have baby ducks splashing their poop-filled wading-pool water all over your screened in porch or having to keep small mammals tucked in your bra and think, "At least I only have cats."
The author doesn't shy away from the gross (poop!) or the grim (injuries, putting animals to sleep), and she's pretty clear about her second thoughts that the wild animals she kept as pets should have stayed in the wild. At the same time, her enthusiasm and love for all kinds of animals is abundantly clear, even as she points out that a lot of them don't make great pets. Sort of James Herriot for middle graders.
The author doesn't shy away from the gross (poop!) or the grim (injuries, putting animals to sleep), and she's pretty clear about her second thoughts that the wild animals she kept as pets should have stayed in the wild. At the same time, her enthusiasm and love for all kinds of animals is abundantly clear, even as she points out that a lot of them don't make great pets. Sort of James Herriot for middle graders.
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December 16, 2019The book is about Ann and her pets. Ann lives in Connecticut and Ann writes this book about her pets and it is such a funny book I recommend it to the people that like animal books and also my friends. This book is a true story and it is HILARIOUS you have to read it.
March 3, 2008
This book made me laugh REALLY hard. The author really does have close to a million pets in her house. Sugar gliders, birds, pygmy mice, you name it. My problem with the book is who her audience is. The book has been published and marketed as a children's book (middle grades) but her voice and tone are often more appropriate for someone from 20 and up, and definitely female. It's a great book--I just wish an editor could have worked with her to publish this one for adults (maybe with a little more adult content) and then published the children's version too, with less stuff that wouldn't click with kids.
May 14, 2012
A curious book: almost second person in tone, full of very funny stories and embarrassing moments, not at all condescending to it's intended audience -in fact, written at the level that any adult could also find appealing. I learned all about sugar gliders, guinea pigs, miniature mice, various birds -animals of the types I've never kept but always been curious about. I wish I'd read this book as a kid -it would have satisfied many of my pet-keeping desires (or at least come close!)
September 15, 2020
One of my absolute favorite books I found in my elementary library, to the point that I asked my parents for it as a Christmas gift as a high schooler.
To me, I suppose how I felt about finding this book then would now equate to finding a spot on campus nobody else really knows about, that I can enjoy as my own secret getaway.
To me, I suppose how I felt about finding this book then would now equate to finding a spot on campus nobody else really knows about, that I can enjoy as my own secret getaway.
May 3, 2012
I am a big animal lover (with a house of a thousand pets of my own!) so reading this book was great! I loved how sarcastic and humorous the author was! Just the fun, quick read I needed before a big day of cage cleaning and water changes!
February 23, 2020
This book was my CHILDHOOD. I loved the snark, the sass, and the adorable little illustrations that came with it! Even now, I am captivated by each and every one of Ann Hodgman's various pets, ranging from sugar gliders to pygmy mice. Definitely time well spent :)
June 9, 2021
A riot and a half. Hodgman writes perfectly to her audience of under-12s, with a candor not dissimilar to how I write now, and hope I'm still writing like that when I'm 51 and enthusiastic about things. Right off the bat, she makes it clear that she's truly not like other moms and she IS a cool mom. Because, as she says, "kids like parents who buy lots and lots of pets."
The title is barely even an exaggeration, considering her pets both past and present, most of which are of the caged variety and no larger than a small dog. I can't even list them all, but they range from your standard cats, dogs and rabbits to exotic things like sugar gliders, a great variety of songbirds, and creatures I've never even heard of, like African pygmy mice and a Chinese bulbul. Plus a few rehabilitated wild critters along the way.
Not to mention one of my favorite things to read about: an exasperated husband who, while obviously in favor of having a normal amount of pets, reluctantly puts up with her constantly informing him of things like "good news, honey! I picked up the milk and bread we needed. Also a cockatiel," or "Surprise! I know you just woke up and this wasn't here when you fell asleep, but look: there's a new dog sleeping in our bed and we get to keep him."
Basically, she has every creature (and then some) that I ever dreamed of having as a kid, when I read voraciously about the care and keeping of small mammals my mom said we could never get because we had cats (and then a dog with a strong prey drive), and by the time the opportunity came along I'd forgotten all my knowledge and was too daunted to research it again, given my one lasting memory of how complicated their needs were.
That said...lack of knowledge never seems to have stopped Ann, whose love of animals throughout her life obviously exceeded her knowledge of their best care practices at times -- "acquire first, figure out the rest later" seems to have been her motto, given the sheer number of impulse buys. And a few of them do die as a direct or indirect result. (Creamsicle's ending, though less a fault of ignorance about care than a consequence of cats being outside, made me bawl, both because of the horrific nature of the injury and the fact that even though he survived it, his quality of life was so reduced that it was kinder to put him to sleep. And her description of what it's like to witness that even when it's calm and peaceful is painfully spot-on.)
Buuuut, since she was born in the 50s/grew up when a lot of these were acceptable practices (and even 20-30 years ago, there was a lot less easily-available information out there for some of these than there is now), and is open and honest about the mistakes she made and would do differently (or not do at all) now, it's hard to fault her for it. After all, if I'd been born in her era I would have done exactly the same things. It's also hard not to admire her when she says she can't actually regret having had her pet prairie dogs, because come on -- they ARE as adorable as they look, even while causing trouble. That's a refreshing stance.
And as I said before, though there are sad bits, the majority of this book is hilarious. I didn't keep track of bookmarks but there were many spots I wanted to quote, and more lines than I could count that made me laugh out loud.
Long story short, I would have enjoyed this book at any age, even though it wasn't published until I was an adult, and I cannot recommend it enough. I'm just sorry it took me so long to find it. (It came up as a Goodreads rec for me -- I've never read any of her other books, though looking through them, I do vaguely recall the My Babysitter is a Vampire books from library shelves, or maybe Scholastic book orders.)
The title is barely even an exaggeration, considering her pets both past and present, most of which are of the caged variety and no larger than a small dog. I can't even list them all, but they range from your standard cats, dogs and rabbits to exotic things like sugar gliders, a great variety of songbirds, and creatures I've never even heard of, like African pygmy mice and a Chinese bulbul. Plus a few rehabilitated wild critters along the way.
Not to mention one of my favorite things to read about: an exasperated husband who, while obviously in favor of having a normal amount of pets, reluctantly puts up with her constantly informing him of things like "good news, honey! I picked up the milk and bread we needed. Also a cockatiel," or "Surprise! I know you just woke up and this wasn't here when you fell asleep, but look: there's a new dog sleeping in our bed and we get to keep him."
Basically, she has every creature (and then some) that I ever dreamed of having as a kid, when I read voraciously about the care and keeping of small mammals my mom said we could never get because we had cats (and then a dog with a strong prey drive), and by the time the opportunity came along I'd forgotten all my knowledge and was too daunted to research it again, given my one lasting memory of how complicated their needs were.
That said...lack of knowledge never seems to have stopped Ann, whose love of animals throughout her life obviously exceeded her knowledge of their best care practices at times -- "acquire first, figure out the rest later" seems to have been her motto, given the sheer number of impulse buys. And a few of them do die as a direct or indirect result. (Creamsicle's ending, though less a fault of ignorance about care than a consequence of cats being outside, made me bawl, both because of the horrific nature of the injury and the fact that even though he survived it, his quality of life was so reduced that it was kinder to put him to sleep. And her description of what it's like to witness that even when it's calm and peaceful is painfully spot-on.)
Buuuut, since she was born in the 50s/grew up when a lot of these were acceptable practices (and even 20-30 years ago, there was a lot less easily-available information out there for some of these than there is now), and is open and honest about the mistakes she made and would do differently (or not do at all) now, it's hard to fault her for it. After all, if I'd been born in her era I would have done exactly the same things. It's also hard not to admire her when she says she can't actually regret having had her pet prairie dogs, because come on -- they ARE as adorable as they look, even while causing trouble. That's a refreshing stance.
And as I said before, though there are sad bits, the majority of this book is hilarious. I didn't keep track of bookmarks but there were many spots I wanted to quote, and more lines than I could count that made me laugh out loud.
Long story short, I would have enjoyed this book at any age, even though it wasn't published until I was an adult, and I cannot recommend it enough. I'm just sorry it took me so long to find it. (It came up as a Goodreads rec for me -- I've never read any of her other books, though looking through them, I do vaguely recall the My Babysitter is a Vampire books from library shelves, or maybe Scholastic book orders.)
October 28, 2020
This book is cataloged as a juvenile story, but it is just as appropriate for adults who grew up with or now live with one or a multitude of pets. It was so much fun to read as it brought back memories of my own adventures with parakeets, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, goldfish, a duck, and ferrets. The author had many more pets in her home -- at least a million. With all her pets, she became quite close friends with many veterinarians, and she shared this anecdote about a friend. He hates to go to people doctors, so he always went to his favorite veterinarian for his check ups. The man's wife is listed on his medical chart as his "owner". This memoir is for everyone who has ever enjoyed an animal story. The saddest part of this great book is that I bought the book at a used book sale sponsored by the Friends of the Library. The book had been on a shelf for ten years before it was released from the library's inventory. When I purchased the book, it looked like it had never been touched, certainly never read. My guess is it had never been displayed properly, and never been read by a staff member and no patron had ever been encouraged to read it. I will pass my copy on, and hopefully, many people young and old, will get to live vicariously in The House of a Million Pets.
July 31, 2023
Addressed directly to the child reader, this book, narrated by Hodgman as herself tells about all the birds (a finch and bulbul, among others) insects, mammals (including a bat, a sugar glider, hedgehogs, and a string of prairie dogs), reptiles, and amphibians she and her family have kept or rescued or otherwise taken in over the years.
She writes engagingly, presenting herself as the cool parent who let her child have every pet they wanted, but she also talks honestly and matter-of-factly about some of the darker aspects of pet ownership such as injury and death. (This leads to some rather black humor for a children's book: "When we thought one of our baby snapping turtles was going to die, we renamed him Dyingy and the other one Livingy.") Overall, there is a good balance of funny, grim, and informative anecdotes. Mostly, though, the book's tone is cute and funny. Euegen Yelchin's illustrations are indispensable to the enjoyment of the book. From page one, with a far from flattering picture of the author meant to induce squeals of laughter and dismay from children, they breathe life into Hodgman's witty or silly prose. Sprinkled in the with narrative are such helpfully hilarious lists as "The Worst Things My Dogs Have Eaten" and "How to Cut a Rabbit’s Nails in 13 Impossible Steps." This is a great book for kids of all ages who are interested in animals.
She writes engagingly, presenting herself as the cool parent who let her child have every pet they wanted, but she also talks honestly and matter-of-factly about some of the darker aspects of pet ownership such as injury and death. (This leads to some rather black humor for a children's book: "When we thought one of our baby snapping turtles was going to die, we renamed him Dyingy and the other one Livingy.") Overall, there is a good balance of funny, grim, and informative anecdotes. Mostly, though, the book's tone is cute and funny. Euegen Yelchin's illustrations are indispensable to the enjoyment of the book. From page one, with a far from flattering picture of the author meant to induce squeals of laughter and dismay from children, they breathe life into Hodgman's witty or silly prose. Sprinkled in the with narrative are such helpfully hilarious lists as "The Worst Things My Dogs Have Eaten" and "How to Cut a Rabbit’s Nails in 13 Impossible Steps." This is a great book for kids of all ages who are interested in animals.
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March 12, 2022This book was given to me by my grandma when I stayed with her one summer when I was younger. I had started to read it then but, I never got around to reading the whole book, so I decided to read it. Ever since I was little I loved animals, which is why my nana gave me the book so, I was instantly drawn towards it. I can relate to the book because just the character, when I was younger, I wanted a million pets as well, but my parents said that we don’t need any more pets because we already foster cats and have our own pets. I think some important characterization would be how the author made the character very scatterbrained. It helped fit into her crazy animal lady persona. I think anyone who has a love for animals should read this book. I found it very interesting how she could remember all the names of all the animals she had.
September 9, 2018
Really enjoyable book for younger kids. I read this book when I was younger and I loved it, and i still keep it on my shelf as memory of my childhood. 💛
September 27, 2018
This book is really good if you are an animal lover but if you love them sooooooo much, I wouldn't recommend this. There are a few chapters about putting animals down.
June 21, 2025
Really good book for animal lovers!
November 23, 2016
My son and I read this together. It's a memoir of the author's large and varied collection of pets, from the run of the mill cats and dogs, to more exotic animals like sugar gliders and an unhappy bulbul.
The House of a Million Pets was enjoyable for both of us, with my middle school-aged daughter joining us for several chapters. Because each chapter was the self-contained story of a specific animal, it was perfect for summertime reading, when there are lots of interruptions. And the stories were honest, some amusing and some heart-breaking. Hodgman begins her adult life collecting all those exotic pets that parents automatically say no to, and she's honest about how fun it was to get to know about them first-hand, but also how much work it is to care for an animal that isn't really a housepet and how they would be happier in their natural environments. She has also adopted a fair number of animals rescued from unhappy situations and there's a heart-breaking chapter about putting a beloved cat to sleep that had both my son and I crying a bit (this chapter is difficult to read, but should be read by anyone who has a pet they love and it sparked a great discussion about the cat we have buried in the woods). Mostly, what comes through the pages is how much joy Hodgman gets from her menagerie and how each animal is an individual (well, except for the pygmy mice and the finches, who tend to be mistaken for one another).
The House of a Million Pets was enjoyable for both of us, with my middle school-aged daughter joining us for several chapters. Because each chapter was the self-contained story of a specific animal, it was perfect for summertime reading, when there are lots of interruptions. And the stories were honest, some amusing and some heart-breaking. Hodgman begins her adult life collecting all those exotic pets that parents automatically say no to, and she's honest about how fun it was to get to know about them first-hand, but also how much work it is to care for an animal that isn't really a housepet and how they would be happier in their natural environments. She has also adopted a fair number of animals rescued from unhappy situations and there's a heart-breaking chapter about putting a beloved cat to sleep that had both my son and I crying a bit (this chapter is difficult to read, but should be read by anyone who has a pet they love and it sparked a great discussion about the cat we have buried in the woods). Mostly, what comes through the pages is how much joy Hodgman gets from her menagerie and how each animal is an individual (well, except for the pygmy mice and the finches, who tend to be mistaken for one another).
August 20, 2016
This book makes me smile. I've never been a pet person, or ever had in any interest in owning pets (except maybe a teacup pig and duckling), but Ann Hodgeman really brings on the appeal of having a house of million pets. I think I'd be too worried about stepping on poop or holding my nose to fully appreciate all the animals though. This book was cute when I read it for the first time in elementary school, and it's still cute now. Each anecdote is short and sweet, the things readers nowadays crave. I don't think I could ever live in Hodgeman's house, but this story allows me to live the experience anyways. Thumbs up!
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November 19, 2017Everyone who's ever had pets knows all about the initial excitement of having a (more often than not) fluffy, cuddly, cute little animal to call your own. Everyone's who's a parent knows that once the initial hubbub has died down, they are the ones left to care for the furry, feathery or scaly critter -- from the mundane to the yucky. So here's a lighthearted tale of someone who is the parent and who is the one responsible for bringing all kinds of animals into the family home!
October 18, 2009
I really liked this because it is about animals and I love books about animals. It is about a lady who has had many different kinds of animals growing up in her house, and each chapter is about one animal she had< so i thought it was really interesting reading about all her animals, and how she helped take care of them.
June 16, 2014
It was OK but I didn't like how she kept exotic pets and bought them from breeders. I don't like how she kept her cats outside. She described many sad stories about how the pets in her life met their ends. I don't think I would let young kids read it.
These days you can go online to research where to rescue and how to care for pets of all kinds. You won't need this book.
These days you can go online to research where to rescue and how to care for pets of all kinds. You won't need this book.
November 20, 2016
A cute book from a woman as obsessed with animals as I am. At times I forgot she was writing to children because she didn't spare details such as death or injury of animals. It would be a good read for an older grade schooler, or one with whom you wouldn't mind discussing matters of life and death in the animal kingdom.
March 9, 2009
This book was so good and a little bit funny. It is a nonfiction book about all the pets a 51 year old woman named Ann Hodgman owns. Each chapter is about at least 1 type of her pets. All that I can say about this book is outstanding! b4
December 9, 2009
The kids love pet books so much, I think they would really enjoy this book. The author tells her stories in short, easy chapters so someone could even return it midway through and not feel as though they missed the ending. It's mostly funny, but has some sadness thrown in.
December 24, 2009
I loved this book so much!! I laughed so hard at where she said she put her sugar glider in her bra because she didn't know where else! I remember this is the book I read before picking up "Warriors: Into the WIld" by erin hunter (wonderful book for cat lovers!!)
February 28, 2014
I loved this book so much. It made me laugh, and I almost cried in places after reading the sad events that took place. Ann is such a great writer, and the book is all the more interesting because it is an autobiography. Ann has a great voice for telling stories.
November 1, 2016
This book is a great book. It shows me lot of kinds of animals. Can, Bird,Dogs,Toads......I learn a lot of animals!The writer use kind words, funny pictures shows us how great it was! I hope more people can read this book!
June 11, 2008
this book is about a old grandma that has so many pets and story's about each kind of pet.
June 15, 2008
Very amusing. It made me want to get a million pets of my own. It also made me never want to own another pet ever again. ;)
November 6, 2008
I LOVE these type of books! They're just a random book about one general subject slabbed together. And not only that, the author's funny! AHAHAHAHAHA!!! Yeah. Uh. Ok.
August 9, 2009
This book was so hilarious and entertaining! It was well written and i could not put it down! It's a must-read for animal lover or not!
May 30, 2009
Not what I thoughtit wuold be but I still loved it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews