Time Travelling with a Hamster is the first book in the Al Chaudhury series by British author, Ross Welford. Four years ago, when Al (Albert Einstein Hawking Chaudhury) was eight, his dad died. Since then, he and mum have gone to live with Steve and the Stepsister From Hell, Carly. Football-mad Steve tries hard to get Al to like him, but Al’s not into football, and Steve’s not dad. Carly doesn’t try at all.

Now, on his twelfth birthday, his mum hands him a letter from his dad. His beloved Grandpa Byron (Byron Rahman Chaudhury-Roy) looks a bit disapproving. When he opens it, much later, Al thinks that maybe Bryon has an idea what’s in it: it’s pretty far-fetched. Pye (Pythagoras Chaudhury) has set Al a task: to use his time machine to go back to 1984, to prevent the minor bingle that will later cause his death.

Trouble is, the time machine his dad built is ten miles away in their old house in Chesterton Road, in the fall-out shelter under the garage. Getting there is a bit of a challenge, and taking Grandpa’s moped in the middle of the night without his knowledge could be trouble, but if he can save his dad, it will be worth it, won’t it?

A laptop, some wires and a tin tub: not what he expected a time machine to look like. Could it work? It seems stupendously unlikely. He might just send his hamster first, to see if it does… except, how will the hamster work the laptop to get back?

Before this adventure is over, Al has to break and enter, is chased by police, saves a cat, loses his mobile phone to a bully, gets trapped in the fall-out shelter, concocts tales for taxi drivers, convinces Carly to help him out, resorts to shoplifting, commits arson, has to climb out of a toilet window, and witnesses o horrible accident that ends in a drowning. He can’t help recalling that Grandpa Bryon warned him that meddling with time would result in misery.

Welford gives the reader a wonderfully earnest protagonist and supplies him with some great support characters. Quirky Grandpa Byron is bound to be a favourite and offers wisdom and insight: “Don’t confuse knowledge with memory, Al. I have got a good memory because I have trained it, but that is not the same as knowledge, and neither memory nor knowledge is the equal of wisdom.”

While the intended reader age is nine years and over, you don’t have to be a kid to enjoy this very entertaining debut novel, and fans will be pleased to know that it is followed by Time Travelling with a Tortoise.