Zoe’s Rescue Zoo 19 – The Helpful Hedgehog

Amelia Cobb's The Helpful Hedgehog is a warm-hearted Rescue Zoo story for 5 year olds about a baby hedgehog who really, really wants to be useful.

What happens

Zoe Parker has the best home ever, because she lives in a zoo! Her mum is the vet there, and Meep, the cheekiest mouse lemur you'll ever meet, lives with them. Zoe has a special gift too. She can talk to animals, and they talk back!

Today Zoe's whole class is coming to the zoo. They're going to choose an animal to adopt for the year. But with lions, elephants, giraffes and penguins to pick from, how will they ever agree?

Great-Uncle Horace arrives late with a basket covered by a towel. Inside is a hoglet (a baby hedgehog, as Zoe learns). His old owner had to move house and could only take her assistance dog with her, so she let him go in the woods. Hugo wishes he'd been helpful enough to go too.

So Hugo tries very hard to help. It doesn't always go to plan! He rolls in the leaves Mr Pinch is sweeping and Mr Pinch thinks he's being attacked by prickly leaves. He knocks over the goat food before the class can feed them. He pops a balloon while the café is being decorated, with an enormous BANG.

Every time, Hugo curls up in an embarrassed little ball. You'll just want to scoop him up.

There's a lovely friendship running alongside. Toby is new in Zoe's class and so shy he can hardly look at anyone. He carries his sketchbook everywhere. But put a hedgehog near him and suddenly he knows all sorts of things (did you know baby hedgehogs lose their spikes, a bit like baby teeth?).

Then, just before the party, Toby goes missing. And it's Hugo who has the idea that helps.

If your reader is starting somewhere new, or finds big groups a bit much, Toby's story is a really gentle one to share. It shows that being quiet doesn't mean you've got nothing to say.

Nothing in it should worry a young reader, apart from Hugo's sad start in the woods, which happened before he arrived.

What to read next

For another new arrival with a big personality, try The Rowdy Red Panda. A red panda flies in by hot-air balloon on a snowy morning and waves at the crowd.