A few practical tips (hamsters hide food and nip a lot) and a few condescending inanities (they come in pretty colors) are addressed to very young children and sometimes, indirectly, to parents--who will have to build the cage though ""you"" can ""hold things straight and hand them tools."" Stein touches on the rudiments of care and feeding and such extras as building playgrounds for the pet, taking its picture, bathing it (!), and giving a dead one a funeral. Of course this catch-all approach doesn't allow for much attention to differences among the rodents (the gerbil's minimal water consumption, for example)--and don't forget that the Silversteins have told kids all about each one separately.