Ferret in the Bedroom, Lizards in the Fridge Book

I gotta say I only picked up this book because it involved a ferret. (It's super rare to find a book that speaks of ferrets in a positive way, so I was pleasantly surprised. I was reading and expected low expectations.) Part of me thought the writing was a little cheesy at first, but hey, it's geared towards younger kids.

The story does pick up more when Elizabeth puts her presidential campaign into full gear from the urging of her friend Sally. Elizabeth is frustrated because of the overwhelming amount of animals in her house because of her father's career as a zoologist. She is considered unpopular because most kids are afraid to visit her house because of the animals. They call her "Liz-ard". In order to have the best chance possible in terms of winning back her friends and the election, she voices her opinion to her father and he gets rid of them. It happened so quickly and it does frazzle Elizabeth. She eventually realizes how the animals taught her lessons despite not being able to talk. She ends up ditching her old speech about how she got rid of the animals and how her house is now "normal" into why she has so many animals and how they've taught her things. Her speech warmed my heart and she does get the animals back.

I think my favorite part of the book is how she considers Fred the ferret her closest animal friend despite how they pick each others' buttons. Their interactions are written quite hilariously. I felt myself panicking reading how neighbors thought Fred was a rat chasing her when Elizabeth was exercising with him. They wanted to kill the poor thing.

I thought it was a nice touch how the writer didn't have Elizabeth win the election but she did score a new friend who experiences the same things as her. That cute boy at the beginning of the book proved to be just like her, loving animals ad being made fun of at his old school. It comes to show that it's always better to be friends with people like you and have similar interests.

I'd definitely recommend this book to everyone, especially if you have animal friends of your own! :)