I was having a look through the children's section of a book shop today,
and a series of animal stories caught my eye.  I didn't really expect there
to be one on ferrets, but to my surprise there was!  So I bought it :)
 
The details:
 
Ferret Fun
by Lucy Daniels
Series: Animal Ark Pets #17
119 pages
Published 1999
Hodder Children's Books
ISBN 0 340 73589 9
 
It has an absolutely gorgeous drawing of a yellow DEW jill on the cover.
 
Plot Summary: Mandy is a girl (probably aged about 10) who loves animals
and she gets plenty of opportunity to learn about them as her parents are
both vets, and run the Animal Ark Verterinary Surgery in the village where
they live.  Mandy finds a stray ferret under her grandparents' shed, and
helps Danny, her friend who used to keep ferrets in America, to look after
the ferret while the try and find the owner.  Together Mandy and Danny come
up with a great idea on how to use Freddy the ferret to help raise money to
buy library books at the school Fun Day.
 
_Ferret Fun_ is an enjoyable little children's story and has great
illustrations of the ferret.  It also provides useful information about
keeping ferrets, like the need for distemper shots, the fact that ferrets
can catch cold, and what ferrets eat.  The author has certainly done her
homework, but she did make a few slip ups - Danny supposedly kept ferrets
in California, and a baby ferret is refered to as a kitten.  Is this
actually how baby ferrets are sometimes refered to in the UK, or is it a
mistake?  The illustrations are great and show typical ferret poses, but
the ferret's tail is shown to be about twice as long as any that I have
ever seen!
 
On the whole this is a good little book, and it's great to see some
literature about ferrets that calmly and sensibly presents them as pets
without making a big deal of it.
 
Kylie Preisig
Ferret fan.  Children's book fan.
Ferretless in Queensland.
[Posted in FML issue 2737]