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    Time Travelling with a Hamster
    Time Travelling with a Hamster
    Time Travelling with a Hamster
    Audiobook8 hours

    Time Travelling with a Hamster

    Written by Ross Welford

    Narrated by Assad Zaman

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    For readers who loved Wonder and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time this extraordinary debut will make you laugh and cry.

    A story that crosses time and generations, for adventure-loving readers young and old.

    “My dad died twice. Once when he was thirty nine and again four years later when he was twelve.”

    On Al Chaudhury’s twelfth birthday his beloved Grandpa Byron gives him a letter from Al’s late father. In it Al receives a mission: travel back to 1984 in a secret time machine and save his father’s life.

    Al soon discovers that time travel requires daring and imagination. It also requires lies, theft, setting his school on fire and ignoring philosophical advice from Grandpa Byron. All without losing his pet hamster, Alan Shearer…

    Time Travelling With a Hamster is a funny, heart-warming race-against-time – and across generations – adventure that you will won’t be able to put down.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 28, 2016
    ISBN9780008156336
    Time Travelling with a Hamster
    Author

    Ross Welford

    Ross Welford was a journalist and television producer before becoming a full-time writer. He lives in London with his wife, children, a border collie and several tropical fish.

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    Reviews for Time Travelling with a Hamster

    4.5/5

    40 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Exceptional & creative. Pure pleasure to listen to the intricacies of Ross welfords time travel.
    • 5/5
      What a delightful and refreshing book! I requested it from NetGalley because I thought the title was intriguing and superb - I mean, how could you resist? And anyway, I like hamsters - I wouldn't call one Alan Shearer myself, but I can quite see why Al did.It's the story of Al, who lives with his Mum, step-dad Steve and the stepsister-from-hell. On his 12th birthday, Al gets a letter from his dad, who's been dead for 4 years, asking him to travel back in time to prevent his death. No problem, the time machine is just there in his dad's old den. Except it IS a problem, because Al and his mum moved in with Steve when she remarried...It's not a terribly long book, readable at a sitting, but there's no end to the riches. Al's a lonely kid - he doesn't have any real friends at his new school, but he's not particularly missing his friends from his old school, because he didn't really have any there either. he does make one during the course of the story, but it's complicated. The person he most likes to spend time with is Grandpa Byron, who once wrote a book on Indian methods of memory training - I haven't mentioned that Al is part-Punjabi - and who speaks in a wonderful mix of Geordie and anglo-Indian idiom.There are aspects of Time Travelling... which reminded me of two other favourite books: The Salt-Stained Book by Julia Jones, and Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (different kind of Indian!) - both, I guess, for the clarity of voice of the young boy who is the main character. In all these books the protagonist is troubled, something of a misfit, and their voices just ring absolutely true. I loved Al, and his family, and once I'd started I had to keep reading to find out what happens.I also liked the lightness of touch with which a good deal of physics and philosophy is included - it's thoroughly accessible. Lastly, I really, really enjoyed the setting on the coast of north-east England, with a largely identifiable geography (Ross Welford's blog confirms that Culvercot IS based on Cullercoats), since I think that not enough books are about the north.
    • 4/5
      “My dad died twice. Once when he was thirty-nine, and again four years later when he was twelve. (He’s going to die a third time as well, which seems a bit rough on him, but I can’t help that.)”Al Chaudhury is a nerdy 12-year-old growing up in the North of England who is off Indian and Welsh heritage.  He lives with his mom, her boyfriend Steve with whom he doesn't connect well, his goth half-sister Carly with whom he does not get along, and his genius Grandpa Byron.  On his twelfth birthday, Al is given a letter written by his father Pye before his death four years earlier.Al is tasked with finding his father's time machine and traveling back to 1984 when the young Pye suffered an accident that would contribute to his early death decades later.  Pye was unable to do it himself because the rules of time travel prevent the same person from appearing twice at the same time.  In this very sweet story, Al makes several attempts to figure out the time machine and how to fix the past, while forming a bond with his father as a boy his own age.  And yes, he travels with Alan Shearer, a pet hamster that was also a birthday gift.I love time travel stories and really enjoyed this messy, heartfelt adventure even if it makes me feel old that traveling to 1984 is treated as the distant past.  Grandpa Byron is a great character and reminds me of my own grandfather who tried to get me to read a book about learning memorization skills. And this is a light spoiler but I love that this is the only time travel story other than Back to the Future where changes in the past lead to a more positive future for the protagonist.
    • 3/5
      middlegrade children's fiction (time travel to save deceased dad with unforeseen repercussions; incidental ethnicity--grandpa Chaudhury is from India, and though Al's grandmother was Welsh and Al's mother is English, Al identifies quite a bit with his grandfather' heritage).
    • 4/5
      This book feels like an achievement.

      I fell in love with Al, a British-Indian nerd who's dealing with bullies at school and the death of his dad. Welford makes so many big, messy topics really accessible and I'm grateful to him for that.

      Al Chaudhry is an incredibly well-developed character. He's intelligent, sensitive and knows when adults are talking about him and talking down to him. That's perhaps one of my favourite aspects of Welford's writing -- he acknowledges how perceptive children are much like Roald Dahl did to me when I was little.

      The character development and arcs was probably my favourite aspect of this book. I loved its tone but the plot fell a little in the middle -- there were lots of logistics to time travel that I don't think always had to be revisited but I liked that there was a lot at stake and it felt like a really well-paced book.

      Time Traveling with a Hamster is cheeky and facetious and speaks to all of us. This chunky novel is meant for middle grade but I think it's totally readable no matter how old you are. I feel like I'll miss this book.
    • 5/5
      Okay, color me impressed! You've heard me praise the wonders of Middle Grade fiction and its wonderful authors many a time, and yet it never fails to stun me how much goodness comes out of the books written for this age group. Ross Welford has penned a gem here. Time Traveling With A Hamster simultaneously pulls together the importance of family, the grey areas we face when making hard decisions, the beauty (and issues) associated with being passionate about something, and even owning up to ones own mistakes. I am so thrilled to have read this, and can't recommend it enough!

      Now, let me put out there that there are actually a fair amount of high end concepts in this book. As a reader who believes fully in not talking down to young readers, I was smitten with this. Al Chadhury's father was a brilliant man. One who wasn't afraid to dabble in science and theory, ultimately leading to his discovery of time travel. Through Al's travels in time, and the letters his father left behind, he learns so much about everything his dad was passionate about. There are brilliant descriptions of the theory of relativity, and examples that actually make it palatable for young minds. There's even discussions of memory devices. Suffice it to say, I was blown away by the sheer amount of lessons in here.

      Better still, none of those lessons seemed to slow down the overall pace of the story. I admit that it took a few chapters to really get going, as some books do, but once I was immersed that was it. Al's quest to save his dad flew by. His brushes with danger, his quick thinking to get out of hairy situations, his realizations that he might not be as clever as the thought he was, all of it just blurred together into this gorgeous story that wouldn't let me go. The ending is perfection, especially for an MG read, and I couldn't have been happier.

      Long story short? This is a must have for reading lists of all ages, but specifically I think this would be a wonderful book to share as a family. There are just so many good ideas caught up in here, I feel like it would be an amazing read to share between parents and their children. Ross Welford has written the type of story that transcends age groups, and that's no easy feat! Add this to your reading list. You won't regret it.