Guinea Pigs Online

Jennifer Gray's Guinea Pigs Online is a daft, fast-moving animal adventure for 8 year olds about two guinea pigs who let themselves out of their hutch every morning.

What happens

Fuzzy and Coco live with Ben and Henrietta Bliss in Strawberry Park. Fuzzy dreams of being a chef like the glamorous TV cook Scarlet Cleaver. Coco is sure she used to live at Buckingham Palace with the Queen (Fuzzy is not convinced).

When the humans are out, the pair get about the house on "the jump". It's a ruler balanced on a doorstop, which fires one guinea pig onto the kitchen counter while the other lands on a squashy cushion. Who wouldn't want to see that?

Then Fuzzy finds a newspaper advert. Scarlet Cleaver's new restaurant wants guinea pigs. Coco laughs at him, they have a proper row, and the next morning Fuzzy has gone.

Coco has to swallow her pride and get online. Terry from next door (a computer whizz who never takes off his woolly hat) helps her find the restaurant. It's called the Meat Cleaver, which doesn't sound good at all.

Coco is the star here. She's posh, vain and rude to everyone, and she says "one" instead of "I". She'll stop to check her whiskers in a mirror in the middle of a rescue mission. She's also braver than she looks.

There's a sharp little lesson tucked inside the silliness. Coco makes a new friend online who suggests meeting in the woods at midnight. It doesn't go well (he isn't a guinea pig), and a dashing freedom fighter called Eduardo has to come to the rescue.

It's a clever way to get kids thinking about who they talk to online, without a lecture in sight. The menu at the Meat Cleaver might make a sensitive animal lover gasp, but it's played for laughs and the whole thing moves at a gallop.

What to read next

If the silly animal capers go down well, Atticus Claw Breaks the Law is by the same author. Atticus is the world's greatest cat burglar, and a gang of very shifty magpies has a job for him.