Gerbil Genius

Animal Ark Pets (UK Order) #9

by Ben M. Baglio, Paul Howard (Illustrator)

Mandy is uncertain how to help a runaway gerbil that has been smart enough to survive on its own near the river

Genres: Animals, Childrens, Chapter Books

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Ben M. Baglio created the brief for two series of children's books - Dolphin Diaries and Animal Ark. Dolphin Diaries features a girl and her family from Florida, who travel around the world as marine biologists and study dolphins. Animal Ark features two children who work together to help animals and solve animal-related mysteries. The books were written by commissioned writers in the UK under Baglio's instruction using the pseudonym Lucy Daniels. Each ghostwriter is named with a 'Special Thanks' on the copyright page.

Using his real name he also wrote the book series The Pet Finders Club, featuring a group of three children who search for peoples lost pets.

Reviews

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a review of the UK Hodder edition, credited to the fake author Lucy Daniels. In America, this would be published by Scholastic under the fake author name of Ben Baglio. The real author was Pat Posner, who also wrote Pony Parade and several other books in the Animal Ark Universe.

How do I know Posner wrote this? Just look at the copyright page or the dedication page. Whoever is given "special thanks" is the author.

At least it's easy to tell who the illustrator was. His name never changed despite which side of the Pond the book was published in. Paul Howard did all of the books in the Animal Ark Pets series. Often, he gives his animals cutesy human expressions, but he did a remarkably good job with the gerbil. He even paid attention to the text. This lost gerbil had a severely injured tail. Howard included this telling detail in his illustrations.

This was a typical Animal Ark Pets book in that it had other B plots to the main A plot of trying to find the Gerbil Genius a home. Other plots included the misadventures of a dog called Arnie, and studying harvest mice in the area. Also included were almost the entire cast of people we met so far in the series, and Welford regulars like Mrs. Ponsonby and her chubby dog Pandora.

Although there was some decent information about gerbils in here, one of the main factors in keeping a gerbil healthy is completely omitted. Gerbils soon die when they are forced to live alone, like the gerbil star of this book. They need to live in pairs, at least. This book covers a very short span of time, less than a month, but I can't think this gerbil would live too much longer unless he gets a buddy.

[Twyla · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite part was when Harvey found a new home at Mandy's school. Harvey was a gerbil who was found in a harvest mouse house one day. The houses were there for a school project called the mouse count. The worst part was when Harvey was found living wild in a harvest mouse house. My favourite character was Mandy because she rescued the gerbil. There was no worst character. Auryn 11 years old, 2015

[Kayla]

I have not actually read this book ,but since I have gerbils I went a head and added it to the animal ark group.

%-)

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pretty good I recomend the series to people who love animals.

[Taylor Troncin]

Loved this series when I was younger. Still a huge animal lover and would like to read the rest of this series!

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10.