A Hedgehog Called Snuffle

Helen Peters's A Hedgehog Called Snuffle is a warm, practical rescue story for 7 year olds about a tiny orphaned hoglet spotted from the top deck of a bus.

What happens

It's the fifteenth Jasmine Green book. Jasmine and her best friend Tom are off to a swimming party, on the bus by themselves for the very first time. Then Jasmine sees a baby hedgehog staggering about in the road.

So they jump off. Goodbye wave machine, goodbye water slide. Hello rusty old farmyard full of junk.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The first hoglet they find has drowned in a water trough, early in the book. It's handled quietly, and Jasmine and Tom are both very upset. Later there's a mention of badgers eating hedgehogs, and a calf Mum was called out to doesn't survive. If your reader finds animal deaths hard, you might want to read those first chapters together. If they're used to farm life, it's honest without being upsetting.

Then Jasmine hears a squeak from a plastic tub behind a tractor wheel. There's a second hoglet inside, stuck and freezing cold.

He weighs eighty grams. He goes into the bottom oven of the Aga to warm up, wrapped in Jasmine's bobble hat. When he makes a little grunt, Jasmine names him Snuffle.

The care is described in lovely detail. Syringe feeds every half hour at first. A teddy to cuddle up to instead of his mum. A night feed at three in the morning, and a hoglet who turns out to snore. Jasmine's hedgehog book even says to paint a few of his toenails with nail varnish, so he can be recognised later. Any colour except red. Can you guess why?

Jasmine being Jasmine, she can't resist a scheme. She phones the rescue centre herself before Mum has said yes, and it backfires badly. It's a very real bit of family life (and Jasmine has to say sorry properly).

Manu, her little brother, is in trouble too. He's been running a secret sweetshop in the playground at 10p a sweet!

Then Jasmine and Tom give a school assembly on How to Help a Hedgehog. Your reader will come away knowing why you should check a bonfire before lighting it. They may also ask you to cut a hedgehog-sized hole in your fence.

What to read next

If they're keen for more of Jasmine's rescues, A Donkey Called Mistletoe is in the library too, with an old donkey who needs a new home and a plan Jasmine keeps from her parents.