Illustrations – Sarah Warburton
Nell is looking forward to attending her best friend’s first ever birthday party on Friday and while Freddie Spoon is trying to downplay his excitement he can’t wait, especially as his father (who’s been away for work for months) will be coming home in time to celebrate with him.
Meanwhile, Nell’s older brother Lucas is practising for his band’s first gig (if you can call that noise music!). When Nell is invited to Lucy Perkins’ birthday party on the same day, Nell agrees to go, forgetting all about her best friend. (Hint: we don’t like Lucy Perkins.) Upon realising her mistake Nell has a choice to make. Freddie Spoon is also disappointed because it turns out his father is unable to leave work after all.
And what about the school hamster, Hamish? In a way, he saves the day.
In this book Nell learns a valuable lesson about friendship and loyalty, and that bigger and shinier isn’t always better than simplicity.
Freddie Spoon is still only ever called Freddie Spoon in this second book in the series and again, Nell’s baby sibling, Baby, still has no name. We find out about Freddie Spoon’s family in this book and we learn some more about Nell’s, along with finding out why Freddie Spoon and Nell are The Invincibles.
The illustrations are fun and I really like the colour scheme used in this series, grayscale and one other colour per book. In the first book it was green and in this book it was yellow. It’s surprisingly effective and eye catching.
I accidentally came into this series via the third book but didn’t think to review it at the time. It’s now back on order from the library and I look forward to reading it again, this time in the context of now having read and loved the first two.
I stand by thinking this is a lovely series for younger children. I’d happily reread them all. Now, to wait for the long weekend to be over so I can collect the third book from the library! 😃
Once Upon a Blurb
In Nell and Freddie’s second adventure, it’s Hamish the hamster to the rescue! Freddie Spoon is having a birthday party for the FIRST TIME EVER. Nell can’t wait to go, until she realises that she’s also supposed to be going to super-popular Lucy Perkins’ party on the very same afternoon! Disaster! But luckily Nell is looking after Hamish the school hamster, and Hamish is a very smart hamster. He makes a surprise appearance at Lucy’s snooty party and saves the day, then they all have LOADS OF CAKE! Hooray!
Schizanthus Nerd 