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The Invincibles #2

The Invincibles: The Hamster Rescue

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In Nell and Freddie's second adventure, it's Hamish the hamster to the rescue! Freddie Spoon is having a birthday party for the FIRST TIME EVER. Nell can't wait to go, until she realises that she's also supposed to be going to super-popular Lucy Perkins's party on the very same afternoon! Disaster! But luckily Nell is looking after Hamish the school hamster, and Hamish is a very smart hamster. He makes a surprise appearance at Lucy's snooty party and saves the day, then they all have LOADS OF CAKE! Hooray!

112 pages, Paperback

Published August 4, 2016

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About the author

Caryl Hart

97 books46 followers
Caryl Hart is an award-winning children’s author who writes picture books and young fiction.

She lives in Sheffield, England with her family and loves running, walking, cafes and snuggling. Her favourite place is the library because it's warm and full of books.

Caryl runs creative literacy workshops in schools, libraries and for festivals. Find out more on her website: www.carylhart.com

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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Profile Image for Schizanthus Nerd.
1,321 reviews315 followers
January 25, 2018
Nell is looking forward to attending her best friend’s first ever birthday party on Friday and while Freddie Spoon is trying to downplay his excitement he can’t wait, especially as his father (who’s been away for work for months) will be coming home in time to celebrate with him.

Meanwhile, Nell’s older brother Lucas is practising for his band’s first gig (if you can call that noise music!). When Nell is invited to Lucy Perkins’ birthday party on the same day, Nell agrees to go, forgetting all about her best friend. (Hint: we don’t like Lucy Perkins.) Upon realising her mistake Nell has a choice to make. Freddie Spoon is also disappointed because it turns out his father is unable to leave work after all.

And what about the school hamster, Hamish? In a way, he saves the day.

In this book Nell learns a valuable lesson about friendship and loyalty, and that bigger and shinier isn’t always better than simplicity.

Freddie Spoon is still only ever called Freddie Spoon in this second book in the series and again, Nell’s baby sibling, Baby, still has no name. We find out about Freddie Spoon’s family in this book and we learn some more about Nell’s, along with finding out why Freddie Spoon and Nell are The Invincibles.

The illustrations are fun and I really like the colour scheme used in this series, grayscale and one other colour per book. In the first book it was green and in this book it was yellow. It’s surprisingly effective and eye catching.

I accidentally came into this series via the third book but didn’t think to review it at the time. It’s now back on order from the library and I look forward to reading it again, this time in the context of now having read and loved the first two.

I stand by thinking this is a lovely series for younger children. I’d happily reread them all. Now, to wait for the long weekend to be over so I can collect the third book from the library! 😃
Profile Image for Mehsi.
16.1k reviews475 followers
February 2, 2017
The second book in the Invincibles series. This time with hamsters, birthday parties, and friendship!

I have to say it would be nice if Goodreads had a series tracker. :P It was only thanks to my boyfriend's phone not taking well to the new update, and us losing back-ups and such for many things, including for the book catalogue, that we had to re-scan all the books (we are still working on it, after 3 days and about 1 to 2 hours each day, we are almost done with one bookcase) that I found the first book and decided to check if there were any new books in the series. :P And there was!

I was delighted not only by the title, but also by the cover. I am big hamster lover, I got a hamster named Hakumei. So I just had to have this book. Luckily it was delivered quite fast after ordering it.

I have to say I wanted to shake Nell a little bit in this one. Why? Well, that she totally forgot her best friend's birthday (how do you even forget that), and that instead of calling off the other party, she just went to that one. Which, I called it, turned out to be a disaster. However, thanks to a little someone it turned out to be quite a fun story to tell everyone in the end. It wasn't that big of a surprise as the blurb made it out to be, as even I can tell you that such a thing is bound to happen if you take x with you. But still it was fun to see how the chaos spread quickly and how Nell took advantage of that.

I am still amazed that the cake made it in one piece. With the way they were running I was worried it would be all over them, and other things.

I didn't quite like the birthday girl, nor did I like the mother. They both have some serious lessons to learn about being nice, friendly, and polite.

I had quite a laugh at Nell's family with how the baby always ends up somewhere. Either in a box, or sprinkled on the kitchen counter. There was also the older brother who I knew wasn't so bad, but still acted like he was totally tough and didn't care about his little sister. Then we have a silly dad, a sweet grandma, and a scatter-brained mom who did some fun creative things.

Then there is her friend Freddie's house which is stuffed to the brim with people. Though often the most important person isn't there. The father. Which made me feel sorry for Freddie. But thankfully something happens at the end that was just so sweet that it brought tears to my eyes.

Considering the tales told by Nell and also other family members about her brother's band, I am glad there is no audio in books. I wouldn't want to hear that kind of stuff.

Of course the book is also full of fun illustrations, this time in the colour yellow. I hope this theme will continue in the next books as well. So I am quite curious about the next colour. Pink? Red? Purple? So many possibilities!

All in all, it was a delight of a story and I laughed my butt off many times. Definitely would recommend it!

Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/
Profile Image for Nicola.
3,666 reviews
August 4, 2020
Miss 6 loves that The Invincibles have a girl protagonist with a boy best friend, and that she likes to have adventures. We talked with this book about the value of friendship and making good choices.

Miss 6 and I like to explore different books and authors at the library, sometimes around particular topics or themes. We try to get different ones out every week or so; it's fun for both of us to have the variety and to look at a mix of new & favourite authors.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews