For this adventure of a caged hamster, two-time Caldecott Medalist Chris Van Allsburg (Jumanji) casts aside dense pencil drawings for cheery saturated watercolors.
Red-headed Pigtails buys a hamster from a pet shop and repeatedly exclaims, "Aren't you my little Sweetie Pie?" The hamster's routine consists of eating and watching the girl. After a few handoffs (he "felt the wind in his fur and smelled the great outdoors"), Sweetie Pie winds up with Cousin Sue, who dresses him in a pink gown, then places him inside a clear plastic ball. Van Allsburg's framed images depict the hamster upending dollhouse furniture, then rolling along in the transparent globe. A four-part panel sequence chronicles near misses by cars and trucks as the hamster gains downhill speed. A rescuer takes him home, and Sweetie Pie narrowly misses the whack of a broom. Next, he heads to school as class pet. But the boy who'd volunteered to take care of Sweetie Pie over vacation leaves him behind after an outdoor game of catch. The children fear the worst: the hamster "was now buried under a snowdrift, frozen stiff as a Popsicle. This made them very sad, but not for long."
The narrative echoes Margaret Wise Brown's classic lines from Dead Bird ("And every day, until they forgot, they went and sang to their little dead bird and put fresh flowers on his grave"). The children may tire of their pet, but Van Allsburg gives the furry hero the last laugh: Sweetie Pie makes his home among the treetops with a family of squirrels. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness